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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Cliap..n5^^2c5yright No. 

A - 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 









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TO THE PUBLIC. 


In preparing the YOUNG AMERICA SERIES Jor 
our readers and the public at large^ it has been our aim 
not only to secure the best literary talent available but also to 
reach as near perfection as possible in the illustrations and 
general make-up. 

The very kind reception given to “ Tan Pile Jim"** and 

Dick and Jackf and the general demand for another 
volume from the pen of B. Freeman Ashley^ assure us that 
this gifted author has struck^ with his brilliant^ wholesome 
and instructive stories^ a permanent vein of favor among 
young and old. 

“ The Heart of a Boy'' {Cuore')^ by the greatest of 
modern Italian novelists has been added to the Series on 
account of its immense popularity among teachers^ pupils 
and all readers of pure literature. 

That the YOUNG AMERICA SERIES, having fomid 
a place in every library, may be the means of elevating the 
minds of boys and girls ^'‘from y to yo" and furnish them 
at all times with healthy recreation, is, and will ever be, the 
earnest desire of 


THE PUBLISHERS. 






The Young America Series 


AIR CASTLE DON; 

Or, 

From Dreamland To KaIrdpan 



By B. FREEMAN ASHLEY 

Author of “Tan Pile Jim,” “Dick and Jack’s Adventures,” etc., etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, 
Unnatural and full of contradictions; 

Yet others of our most romantic schemes 
Are sometimes more than fictions. 

— Thomas Hood, 




Entered according to Act of Congress in the year eighteen 
hundred and ninety- six, by 
WILLIAM H. LEE, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 

(ALL BIGHTS BBSERVBDO 


WHY NOT? 


We now come to our readers with a story of city life in con- 
tinuation of our experiment of writing about things which have 
hitherto remained, in great part, unexplored. The readers of a 
book seldom have an opportunity to talk back to an author. The 
author, for his part, would be glad to have his readers talk back at 
him; he would like to come into closer touch with them. Suppose 
then that when you have read this book, you — no matter what 
your age, sex or opinions may be — sit down and give the writer a 
bit of your mind on this book, and its mates, if you have read 
them. And while you are about it, suppose you also tell him 
what kind of books you like to have written for young people from 
seven to seventy. It would be fun for you, and, doubtless, would 
be fun for the author also. Send along your letters. They shall 
be answered by an autographic letter from the author, that is, if 
he be not smothered under them before he gets a chance to answer. 

Why not ? 

B. Freeman Asheey. 

Care of Laird & LEE, Chicago. 


I. 





Table of Contents 


CHAPTER page 

I. Introduces Don Donalds 9 

II. The Lady of the Lake Club 18 

III. Don Makes Two Moves 30 

IV. In the City of Notions 39 

V. An Attic Philosopher 60 

VI. Looking for a Situation 61 

VII. Don Has a Great Day 72 

VIII. The Backbone of the Black Art 81 

IX. Paying for a Disappointment 91 

X. Old Failings Revive 100 

XI. Deep Water Soundings 109 

XII. Adrift Again 120 

XIII. Look Before You Leap 129 

XIV. How a City Becomes a Thornbush 138 

XV. Spirits in Prison 148 

XVI. A Perplexed Family 157 

XVII. A Puzzled Youthful Pilgrim 168 

XVIH. An Involuntary Detective 178 

XIX. Under Cover Again 189 

XX. A Queer Temptation 199 

XXI. A Telling Illustration 209 

XXII. Picking Up a Protege 219 

XXIII. Talking Through His Hat 231 

XXIV. In a Predicament 240 

XXV. Keeping a Contract 251 

XXVI. A Frustrated Threat 263 

XXVII. An Elopement 273 

XXVIII. A Breathing Spell 282 

XXIX. An Enlargement of the Heart 294 

XXX. As They Sailed, As They Sailed 305 

XXXI. On Hannah Screechum’s Island 317 

XXX II. A Parting Look Into the Kaleidoscope .... 331 


AIR CASTLE DON; 


Or, From Dreamland to Hardpan. 


CHAPTER I. 


INTRODUCES DON DONADDS. 

It is possible for a boy to keep still, and that, too, without 
being either crippled or dumb, asleep or dead. For instance, 
there was Don Donalds. He sat upon a grassy bluff below 
which there was a raceway through which rapid water tinkled 
with perpetual music, and beyond which was a rocky islet 
dividing the raceway from a small river that ran over a stony 
bottom to a deep pool a short distance below. His back rested 
against a mossy stonewall built by pioneers whose very mem- 
ory had perished from the face of the earth. Behind the wall 
there was an old apple orchard that was a Mecca for boy 
pilgrims from the time of the earliest green apple to the time 
when the last frost-mellowed one hung on the topmost bough 
a sun-painted prize for him who had a searching eye and enter- 
prising legs and hands. When Don sat there the spring birds, 
holding undisputed possession, were experiencing the song- 
provoking raptures of mating and nest building, while the 
wind stirred through the leaves whispering strange stories of 
its adventures in earth and sky. 

( 9 ) 


10 


AIR CASTLE DON 


One patriarchal tree, whose juices ran to sweet apples, 
stretched a long sturdy branch over the wall and held a thick 
canopy of leaves over the boy’s head to protect him from the 
rather fervid heat of the rapidly nooning sun. Two robins had 
selected the very center of the canopy for their nest, and as it 
was not among their calculations to have a boy so near, they 
scolded at him from above, and in their restless protests against 
his intrusion shook down showers of blossoms upon him. 
Perceiving that he took no notice of their presence, and was 
as still as the stones against which he leaned, they went about 
their business. A chipmonk, however, seemed to take up the 
fears they had discarded. He was making a journey on the 
top of the wall, and coming to where Don sat, he gave him 
notice to get out of the way by scolding at him with a series 
of diminutive barks that sounded like the abdominal squeaks 
of a toy dog. As no notice was taken of him he sat up on the 
topmost stone of the wall, and for a moment meditated in 
silence. What manner of boy could this boy be that would 
let a chipmonk come in sight without attempting to molest 
him, and that, too, when pebbles were within reach of hand? 
He ran by, and not satisfied with his meditations, sat up again 
and whisked his tail in another attempt to solve the mystery 
surrounding the still figure. He could see that Don’s eyes 
were open, and that his chest gave evidence of , his being 
breathingly alive, but that was about all. The^ chipmonk 
passed on his way, but his subdued manner said as plainly as 
any manner could, “I give it up. That boy beats any nut I 
ever attempted to crack.” 

There was nothing mentally or physically wrong with Don 
that he should keep so phenomenally still. His dark, viva- 
cious eyes were filled with slumbering fires of thought, and his 
lively face and reasonably stalwart limbs gave countenance to 


AIR CASTLE DON 


11 


the supposition that he was at that stage of his existence when 
the monkey propensities of human nature are at their highest. 
He, in fact, could clear a wall at a bound, and vie with any 
noises common to the average boy throat, and was not slow to 
join in the athletic sports or roystering rackets of his fellow 
boys. 

Perhaps he was looking at things around him, and listening 
to the varied sounds that punctured the silence of the scenery. 
Swallows and martins raced dizzily in the air and occasionally 
dipped with crazy motions into the waters of the stream. 
A milk-white flock of geese squatted on the green grass of the 
islet pluming their feathers and quacking about their adven- 
tures in the pool below. Beyond them a dozen or more of 
crows were quarrelling over a herring that one of them had 
pulled from among the shore rocks of the stream. A fish- 
hawk circled high in the sky above them watching for a chance 
to descend and claim the herring for his own, or to make a 
swoop upon some of the trout that; ignorant of danger, occa- 
sionally shot above the surface of the water in pursuit of insects 
hovering temptingly near. 

On the far side of the stream, the stones of the village grist- 
mill monotonously grumbled as they ground out their daily 
grist of oats and barley. On the near side, the single saw of a 
dilapidated sawmill growled hoarsely as it danced up and down 
and struck its big teeth into the vitals of a great oaken log that 
was being turned into ship plank. Above the bridge which 
crossed below the mills the low, vibrant thunder of the dam 
predominated over all other sounds, reducing them to a gen- 
eral harmony, so that even the whang of the blacksmith’s 
sledge, and the whock of the carpenter’s hammer striking on 
the other side of the stream were made tributary to the 
concord. 


12 


AIR CASTLE DON 


But Don was paying no attention to things visible or 
audible; and he remained as silent as the vacant church, school- 
house and courthouse that formed the still group of public 
buildings on the far side of the stream. A cow with a bell at 
her throat came up the bluff and tinkingly grazed her way to 
his feet without having any more notice taken of her, or of her 
gently surprised moo than if she were not put on four legs for 
boys to throw stones at or to torment in sundry other ways. 
Like the robins and the chipmonk, she wondered at him 
awhile, asking all sorts of questions of her internal self and 
then passed munchingly on to where taller blades of grass 
invited the coil of her industrious tongue. 

Don had removed his hat — a curious chip made from the 
strippings of a birch by an ancient Indian squaw for his 
especial benefit — and had put it over a small flat stone to the 
great terror of a pair of field mice that had been watching him 
from beneath. Don was reading a book; and this was the 
secret of his apparent indifference to things in Heaven, things 
on earth and things under the earth. The book was so absorb- 
ing that the whole outer world was as if it were not. 

Not far distant, standing upon the middle bridge of the 
thrice divided stream, and leaning upon the rail was another 
figure almost as motionless as Don himself. It was the figure 
of an old Scotch fisherman, who had wandered around the 
world so long and had seen so much of human nature, and, 
other things, that his chief refrain was “ Vanity of vanities; all 
is vanity.” This was Peter Piper of whom Madge, Don’s 
sister, declared, that he was the very Peter who picked a peck 
of pickled peppers — the Peter Piper of the pronouncing puzzle 
that Avard Doane, the village schoolmaster used to test his 
thick-speeched pupils by. And she further declared that there 
was no need of asking. Where’s the peck of pickled peppers 


AIR CASTLE DON 


13 


that Peter Piper picked? for he carried them about with him 
and was always ready to administer liberal doses of them to 
both young and old on the slightest provocation. Her belief 
in his sour and peppery disposition grew mainly from the fact 
that he had once reproved her for doing her hair up in curl 
papers. 

Peter was in some respects the victim of popular injustice. 
Although the softer soil of his heart had been covered by irrup- 
tions of hard experience, it was not destroyed, and one had but 
to go deep enough to find it. At that very moment he was 
thinking of the native cottage and land from which he had 
wandered so long and so far; and like many another of us 
older ones, he was sighing for the days of his youth. And 
knowing that they could never return in this life, he was trying 
to console himself with the thought that some of the things 
that he learned in the “auld kirk at hame” would turn out to 
be more than true in the life to come. In his own way he was 
saying to himself : 

I am far frae my hame, an’ Pm weary aften- whiles. 

For the langed hame-bringin’, an’ my Father’s welcome 
smiles, 

An’ I’ll ne’er be fu’ content till mine een do see 

The gowden gates o’ Heaven an’ my ain countree. 

Shaking his tears into the stream to dry his eyes, he com- 
pressed his quivering lips and resolutely lifting his head he 
thumped his gnarled stick vigorously upon the planks of the 
bridge in protest against his melting mood. Just then he 
caught sight of Don and his book, and the sight restored to 
him his peck of pickled peppers. 

When Peter saw a boy reading a book at his own sweet 
will — free from all compulsory tutorings, and in a corner by 


14 


AIR CASTLE DON 


himself, he at once jumped to the conclusion that he was read- 
ing something that ought not to be read. He doubtless 
remembered the escapades of his own young days, and judged 
the lad by his own misdoings, as is apt to be the case with those 
who have indicting memories. 

“Gin I were the daddy o’ that lad,” he wrathily exclaimed, 
“I’d take all his haverings an’ burn them afore all men, an’ gie 
him fu’ screeptural authority for that same : See Acts o’ the 
Apostles, nineteenth chapter an’ nineteenth varse. An’ gin 
that wadna cure his appetite for all sich cantankerosities. I’d 
supplement the fire wi’ a gude birch rod: See Proverbs 
twinty-third an’ fourteenth: ‘Thou shalt beat him with the 
rod, and shalt save his soul from hell.’ ” 

It eased Peter’s recollection of his own shortcomings to 
think that here was a chance to discover and comment upon 
the failings of others. And he continued: “See what comes 
o’ havin’ a meenister for a daddy wha preaches sae much at 
ither people there’s naethin’ left for his ain bairns. Tf a man 
know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of 
the house of God?’ See fust Timothy, third chapter an’ fifth 
varse. Charity begins at home; see — see — Aye, Peter, where 
did ye see it? Ye ought to know that it’s no’ in the buik, an’ 
is not a text o’ the elect.” ' 

And having tired of talking to himself, and to make amends 
for having quoted unscriptural authority, Peter determined to 
interfere with Don’s reading, and to find out for himself what 
he was reading. Don was so absorbed in his book that he 
didn’t notice Peter till he was close upon him. 

Without ceremony Peter touched the book with his stick 
and said with his whole peck of pickled peppers in his mouth: 
“Ye’ll be readin’ Fox’s Book o’ Martyrs, or The Lives o’ The 
Saints, the noo?” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


15 


Don had had many encounters with the Scotchman, 
encounters which he rather enjoyed than feared, and he replied 
laughingly: “No, Mr. Piper; I took those bitter doses when 
I was coming up from the scarlet fever, and because Betty 
Crowell brought them in and said they were good for sick 
boys. But that was a bad day for the books, for the Doctor 
ordered them into the stove after I got through with them lest 
they should give the scarlet fever to somebody else. Betty 
has been mourning for them ever since.” 

“More’s the peety! Gin ye had filled yersel’ wi’ them ye’d 
be more likely to make a mon o’ yersel’.” And seeing that 
Don was not disposed to volunteer information about the book 
in hand, Peter added: “Maybe it’s the Scotch varsion o’ the 
Psalms ye’re tunin’ yer soul wi.” 

“I didn’t know that the Scotch had written any Psalms,” 
said Don, half innocently and half mischievously. 

“Ploot, laddie! I said Varsion.’ Dinna ye ken the 
meanin’ o’ varsion, an’ ye a meenister’s son? Gin ye’d ben 
nursed at the paps o’ the Old School Presbyterians, like mysel’, 
ye’d no’ be the coof ye are this minute.” And not to be 
diverted from his purpose, Peter returned to the charge. “I 
make free to say that the buik ye’re spierin’ into belangs to the 
frogs an’ the lice kind which hae come into the land for its 
wickedness. That’s the cause o’ your eegnorance of the var- 
sion. ‘Ephraim is joined to his idols’: See Hosea, fourth 
chapter an’ seventeenth varse. An’ may the Lord hae marcy 
on your ^oul afore ye’re given up to a reprobate mind, for ye’re 
bewitched wi’ wickedness.” 

“Yes, I am bewitched; and if Sir Walter Scott is wicked- 
ness I am be\vitched with wickedness, for I am reading Peveril 
of the Peak, and this is not the first of his books I have read.” 

Don spoke proudly when he should have spoken with some 


16 


AIR CASTLE DON 


twinges of conscience. He had read Scott to an excess. His 
head was full of castles and towers; moats and drawbridges; 
shining steel and brilliant banners ; gallant knights and beauti- 
ful ladies, and stirring trumpets and thrilling tournaments. 
Under the wand of The Wizard of the North he had gone 
straight up to the clouds, where he lived more than was good 
for his mind. 

The moment he mentioned Sir Walter Scott, Peter 
changed; his gray eyes became luminous, and his world- 
seamed face shared in the glow of his eyes. For the time 
being he forgot the Book of Martyrs, The Lives of The Saints 
and The Scotch V ersion of The Psalms. 

^‘Sir Walter Scott!” he exclaimed with growing excitment. 
^^He was the canniest Scot that ever climbed a hill or drew in 
the breath of the heather! I was born in sight o’ bonny 
Abbotsford. When I was but a lad aft hae I seen him roamin’ 
the gray hills wi’ his high bred dogs. His face was like the 
sun shinin’ aboon the mountains. These lugs o’ mine hae 
heard his voice soundin’, sometimes like the waters amang the 
rushes, an’ sometimes like the flood cornin’ down the brae. 
Mony’s the time I hae got him a flower frae the clif¥ or fetched 
him a pebble frae the bottom o’ the brook. He wasna a snob 
always a fearin’ his respectability might dissolve in a shower, 
but he took my gifts an’ thankt me for them, an’ talked about 
them like a gentleman. An’ when I carried him a pair o’ sal- 
mon ye wadhaethocht I were a givin’ him a crown. He didna 
forget that he was a lad ance, an’ though he became a lord he 
was not ashamed to own the bairns wi’ whom he played. Ye 
mind his words in Marmion : 

And much I miss those sportive boys. 

Companions of my mountain joys. 

Just at the age ‘twixt boy and youth. 

When thought is speech, and speech is truth.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


17 


It was Don’s turn to be astonished, and he said: ‘‘Why, Mr. 
Piper I never knew that you had seen — actually seen Sir Wal- 
ter Scott!” 

“That’s not to be wonnered at. ‘What man knoweth the 
things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him?’ See 
fust Corinthians, chapter two, varse eleven. We dinna so 
much as knov/ the people on whose toes we tread ivery day; 
we are a’ meesteries to ane anither.” 

“Please sit down and tell me all you know about Sir Wal- 
ter,” pleaded Don earnestly, and with a respect that he had 
never before felt for the old fisherman. And thus it happened 
that the two who seemed to be at the opposite poles of life 
found themselves on the equator together. As the man went 
on with his recital of what he had seen of the great romancist 
and poet, Don saw that he was possessed of reminiscences 
that were far more interesting than some things he had read in 
the books about Sir Walter Scott. 

“Aa’ noo,” said Peter at the end of his narrative, “I hae 
said ower much to the praise o’ Sir Walter, an’ maybe ye’ll be 
readin’ him mair than ever, an’ that too, without asavin’ mix- 
ture o’ other things. The emagination, ye ken, is a gude 
friend, but an unco bad guide. Gin ye live on stories an’ tales 
a’ the time, ye’ll be like the stork which is a’ legs, wings an’ 
neck, an’- which has an uncanny way o’ spendin’ the maist o’ 
its time in the marshes cockit up on one leg by itself. Or ye’ll 
be like Jacob dreamin’ aboot angels an’ angels’ ladders ower- 
much; see Genesis twenty-eight and twelve. Angels’ ladders, 
ye ken, were not made for the likes o’ Jacob to climb. Whin 
ye get to be an angel it’ll be time enough to try that way of 
rising; but while ye are a mortal bein’, ye maun do your wrast- 
lin’ an’ fight your battles on solid ground, e’en though ye hae 
to do it in the dark, an’ get your hip crackit in the doin’ o’ it,” 


CHAPTER 11. 


THE) I<ADY OF THF LAKF CI.UB. 

Barrington Head was so far removed from the bustle of 
the outside world that not even a telegraph instrument clicked 
to disturb its quiet. The weekly stage arrivals, and the Sun- 
day gatherings at the two ‘meeting houses’ were the most 
exciting events of current history. An occasional gale of 
wind with a seasoning of thunder in it was welcomed for var- 
iety’s sake. The people went to bed betimes and rose up early 
to greet the first rays of the sun. 

When the village school was in session there was a pleasant 
hum of life in its vicinity, for the youth of both sexes were no 
exception to their kind when they gathered on the green 
before the bell rang, or poured out in noisy tumult when the 
welcome times of recess released them from their books. 

The court house by the school seldom or never 
had a trial to disturb its vacancy and stillness. When 
the circuit judge made his annual visitation, the most 
he ever did was to put on his robe and wig, and 
then in addition draw on his white gloves in com- 
pliance with the customs of the time as a sign that his docket 
was white or empty of cases. With this formality the court 
was adjourned and His Honor hied to the stream to angle for 
trout till it was time for him to go to some other place to go 
through with the same arduous ceremonies. There was so 
little litigation in the hamlet that no lawyer deemed it worth 
his while to become a resident of it. The people knew their 
own business and attended to it without any legal aid. 

(i8) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


19 


It would have taken a day’s travel to discover a liquor 
saloon. Any attempt to fix such a curse upon the community 
would have resulted in the tipping of the building into the river 
without the benefit of either judge or jury. Drunkards were 
as scarce as white elephants. 

Nevertheless, quiet as was the hamlet it was the home of 
mariners who did business upon the great waters, and who 
went down to the sea in ships and sailed with them unto the utter- 
most parts of the earth. And not a few born in these scenes of 
silence became the occupants of exalted stations in centers of 
both commercial and political activity. 

Don lived in an old colonial house near the bluff on which 
we found him sitting with his book. The gabled residence 
was a house of many rooms each one of which was finished in 
a style suggestive of a wealth of wood and no end of time. 

By the irony of Fate or the miscalculations of the builder, 
the two porches of the rear of the house fronted upon the pub- 
lic highway, while, by way of contradiction, the quite elaborate 
front backed upon the orchard through which no visitor ever 
thought of making an approach to the premises. Not so 
much as a footpath invited from that direction, for the orchard 
was bounded by a thornhedge, and the thornhedge by a salt 
meadow that ended in the waters of the harbor — a deep dented 
bay scooped out by the Atlantic during the innumerable years 
of unrecorded time. 

One gable of the paint-despising building faced a turn in 
the road, and the old sawmill; and the other commanded an 
extended view of the winding highway along which were 
scattered the few houses of the hamlet that seemed in danger 
of tumbling into the boundless contiguity of space or into the 
dark evergreen forest that belted the sea-jagged coast. 

One of the porches — the one that served as the main 


20 


AIR CASTLE DON 


entrance to this wooden cave — opened into a large room or 
kitchen whose most noticeable object was the great fireplace 
flanked on either side with yawning ovens deeply set in the 
enormous chimney. The crane and andirons, and great bul- 
ging pots and kettles might have served for the kitchen uten- 
sils of the Cyclopean monster whose single eye Homer’s hero 
punched out with the burning stake. The fuel for this omniv- 
orous fire-cave was amply furnished by the waste slabs and 
logs from the convenient sawmill. The narrow window open- 
ing between the two porches afforded a dim light to the odd 
reception room into which no visitor entered for the first time 
without experiencing both surprise and curiosity. The gen- 
eral furniture of the room was largely extemporized by family 
skill from the scantlings of the mill-yard. 

The ample cooking facilities were exceptionally convenient 
for the Donalds family, the offspring being both numerous and 
healthy. And visitors were so frequent that it was seldom the 
house was without one or more guests. Now it was the lord 
bishop or the chief justice of the province, and then a patent 
medicine vender, or a lecturer who carried an accordeon with 
which to increase his chance of a hearing. The house, how- 
ever, was not a hostelry; that dignity was reserved to the 
Homer Hotel, situated on the green opposite, whose keeper 
was a county celebrity, a member of the provincial parliament, 
and a man of such knowledge and oratorical ability that when he 
mounted the hustings the people bowed before his eloquence 
as the tree -tops bow before the wind. His guests seldom left 
his hotel without first paying their respects to the old house 
and its occupants, and it thus happened that the Donalds, both 
small and great, were kept well apprised of the current gossip 
of the world without. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


21 


As Don knew the haunts of the trout, and was skilled in the 
lures best adapted to them, he was in frequent demand as a 
guide to the fishing pools. But being jealous of his reputa- 
tion as a companion he always refused compensation as an 
attendant. Although the visitors often smiled at his airs, he 
suffered no inconvenience from their private opinions, for 
where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise. 

One day a man of middle age, all the way from London 
made his appearance in the place and signified his intention to 
remain for several weeks. Little by little it came out that he 
was an artist of great distinction ; one who had made sketches 
in Africa, India, South America and in the United States; and 
one whose domestic infelicities had been paraded wherever the 
English language was printed. Mr. Barry, for that was his 
name, sought the province thinking that he could here effectu- 
ally seclude himself, but only to find that his fame had pre- 
ceded him. Although connected with a titled family, his manners 
were simple and hearty, and he was as much devoid of all pre- 
tence as though he were the descendent of a log cabin family. 
Being a passionate angler and hunter, as well as an ardent 
artist, he at once secured Don for his attendant. 

When Peter Piper saw them together for the first time, 
he said in his most peppery manner: “It’s unco bad for a 
nobody to be cheek-by-jowl wi’ a somebody unless, like Elisha 
he grows beeg enough to wear his mantle; see fust Kings, 
nineteenth an’ nineteenth. The lad’ll be going straight to the 
clouds, an’ when his ludship’s gone it’ll be a twel’ mo before 
he sees ground agen.” 

At the same moment Barry was saying to Don: “That’s 
a saucy looking little craft lying out there in the bay. I’d like 
to charter her while I’m here. She’s just the size for nosing 
in and out among the harbors of this coast.” If he had looked 


22 


AIR CASTLE DON 


more closely he would have seen that her sails were not bent, 
and that she was far from being in trim for sea-work. 

‘That’s The Lady of The Lake,” Don replied. 

“Lady of The Lake?” exclaimed the artist. “How did she 
get such a name as that in such an out of the way place as 
this?” 

“She was built in the woods by Jacob Kendrick, a man who 
knew as much about Sir Walter Scott’s poems as he did about 
his Bible, and what he didn’t know about the Bible was 
scarcely worth knowing;” and Don answered with spirit. 

“Built in the woods?” Barry exclaimed, with increasing 
surprise. 

“Yes; three miles above this; back of Oak Park; two of 
them. The other one was called The Youth. The Lady is 
about twenty-five tons burthen, and the other was about nine- 
teen tons.” 

“How did they get them down to the sea?” Barry inter- 
rupted, believing that he had stumbled upon a new thing under 
the sun. 

“They put them in cradles, and the cradles on rollers and 
hauled them down with a long row of oxen to low water mark ; 
and when the tide came in, they floated as trimly as though 
they had been built in a regular shipyard and had gone into 
the sea on tallowed skids.” 

“And you saw all this with your own eyes?” and Barry 
looked into Don’s eyes as if searching the retina for some pho- 
tograph of the scene. 

“Oh, no, but it’s just as true as if I did. That was more 
than thirty years ago; and the little craft out there having 
served her day, is no longer fit for sea. She is now head- 
quarters for The Lady of The Lake Club, and but for the club 
she would have been torn to pieces long before this.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


23 


“Well, I have stumbled upon some oddities in my time, 
but, judging from what I am learning in this place, I have not 
yet exhausted them all. Pray, what is this club of which you 
speak?” 

“It is a club of ten boys — the upper ten of Barrington — 
ranging from twelve to sixteen. I’m the Grand Keyman of 
the club, and if you would like to go aboard and take a closer 
look at The Lady of The Lake, I’ll row you off at your 
convenience.” 

“I’ll accept your invitation on the spot ; we can afford to let 
the trout keep themselves in the water till we get back.” 

Don led the artist down to Sargent’s wharf without delay. 
Here they stepped into a gaily painted yawl, of which Barry 
said with a merry twinkle: “Somebody believes in paint as 
much as I do.” 

“Yes,” Don replied, with some hesitation; “we painted her 
ourselves and with the odds and ends of all the forsaken 
paint-pots of the village.” 

“Here, I’ll take one of those oars,” said Barry, as he saw 
Don seat himself with both oars in hand. 

“Then you can row?” Don answered, looking rather sus- 
piciously at the artist’s delicate hands. 

“I was born on the Thames, and have wet several pieces of 
wood first and last; but you may play stroke-oar if you wish.” 

“Well, here we go,” and Don fetched a stroke which was 
intended to swing the boat strongly against the artist’s side. 

But Barry countered the stroke so quickly the yawl instead 
of looking around to watch her wake shot ahead as straight as 
an arrow, and Don instead of giving a lesson to Barry took 
several for himself. When they reached the vessel the artist 
was breathing as easily as an infant, while Don was puffing like 
a porpoise. 


24 


AIR CASTLE DON 


“She is rather past the prime of life/’ said Barry compre- 
hensively, running his eyes over the craft swiftly and discov- 
ering that although she sat the water like a duck, all her run- 
ning rigging had been removed, save the color-halliards 
which still clung to the maintopmast as if for use. The railing 
was much dented and weatherworn, and the decking showed 
many signs of amateur calking and tarring where the club had 
worked to prevent the seams from gaping too widely to the 
weather. 

Taking a formidable key from his pocket, Don turned the 
great padlock from the companionway-staple and pushing 
back the slide, and shoving open the two parts of the little 
door, stood aside for Barry to descend the steps to the cabin. 
The bulkhead, which originally divided the cabin from the 
hold, had been removed and a new partition made, which 
increased the length of the room to half the length of the 
vessel. 

“Wait till I light the chandelier so that you can see better,” 
said Don, as the artist stumbled against the near end of a 
long table which ran lengthwise the narrow cabin. 

“That is a chandelier worth having,” remarked the artist 
when the suspended moose-antlers illuminated by ten candles, 
one for each member of the club, lighted up the cabin. 
Taking one of the plain wooden chairs placed neatly by the 
table, which he noticed was covered with clean napery and a 
fair supply of dishes ready for use, the artist sat down and 
began to look around. One end of the table that was not 
occupied by dishes was covered with books. The plain spaces 
of the cabin were pasted over with pictures, and little shelves 
here and there contained curiosities gathered from forest, 
stream and sea shore. But what most attracted him was a 
motley array of many-hued and many-shaped robes that hung 
upon the rear wall of the cabin. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


25 


‘‘What’s all this?” Barry asked, going up to the garments 
and fingering them over. 

Don almost giggled at the artist’s eager curiosity, and said; 
“When the ship Anglo-Saxon was cast away on Cape Island 
several years ago she had on board a whole company of actors 
and actresses who were bound for England. All were safely 
rescued and sent to Halifax. Among the few things saved 
was the theatrical outfit of the company. At the auction of 
the wreckage no one wished to buy the ‘unholy stuff’, and it 
was stowed away in an old shed. To prevent it from rotting 
uselessly we took possesion of it for the benefit of the club. 
It’s all there from the royal garments of the king and queen 
down to the cap and bells of the king’s fool. The robes are 
rather the worse for the wear, but I guess they will hang 
together as long as the club does.” 

“This is a brand new freak of rustic juvenility,” said Barry 
scratching his eyebrows vigorously. “Tell me more about 
your club.” 

“We have heard that secret societies call their officers by 
the biggest names they can get, and then buy robes to fit the 
names. Examples are catching, you know.” 

“Who are your officers, and what do you call them?” 

“Arnold Doane, Most Sovereign Potentate; James Doane, 
Grand Viceroy; Joshua Smith, Sublime Scribe; John Perry, 
Sublime Warden of Pounds Shillings and Pence; James Cox, 
Sublime Door Defender; Joshua Harding and John Homer, 
Jr., Sublime Marshals of Pots and Kettles; George Crowell 
and Winthrop Sargent, Jr., Most Puissant Dishwashers and 
Keepers of the Pantry. Besides being Grand Keyman, I am 
Knight of the Cap and Bells. We change officers every three 
months. The Fool’s Cap is the badge which is the most 
eagerly sought. Every one is obliged to fit his language to 


26 


AIR CASTLE DON 


his clothes. We meet once a week, and each one brings some- 
thing for the supper. No monkeying is allowed except by the 
Regular Fool. Part of the time is spent in reading. If you’ll 
come to the next meeting and tell us something about hunting 
the tiger in Africa and the elephant in India, where you have 
been so much, we’ll make you an honorary member and put 
the king’s robes upon you at your visit. I am Grand Sover- 
eign Committee on Guests and will see that the invitation is 
written out and sent to you in form.” 

“I’ll come, sure,” said Barry, and his ready acceptance so 
pleased Don that he determined to do all he could to make the 
visitation the event of the club’s history. 

“But what use do you make of these female robes — ^worship 
them?” asked Barry. 

“At the installation of officers each member of the club is 
privileged to bring one girl friend with him, and to offer to her 
for her use during the evening the robe which is the nearest 
match to his own rank in the society.” 

Barry went to the club according to promise, and after he 
had entertained them for an hour with an account of his travels 
and some of his adventures in Africa and India he compliantly 
allowed them to put upon him the king’s robe and tinsel crown 
and, notwithstanding the grotesqueries of the meeting and the 
banquet, he enjoyed himself to the fullest bent of his humor. 
He had insisted as one condition of his visit, that nothing of 
their usual form should be omitted. 

Thereafter the boys were at the disposal of the artist for 
anything that could administer to his pleasure or to the main 
object of his stay in the vicinity. He was well acquainted with 
the stirring history of the ancient times of this part of Acadia, 
and told them more about the vicinity than any of them had 
ever heard before. They took him in their yawl and under 


AIR CASTLE DON 


27 


sail carried him to Cape Sable because he wanted to see the 
famous island upon which the Norseman, Leif, the son of Eric 
the Red, of Brattahlid, in Greenland, landed before he went 
on to discover the shores of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 
He was acquainted also with the fact that the Cape was the 
scene of the exciting adventures of the French Latour and his 
beautiful and heroic wife, and that Port Latour, just below 
Barrington, was named after the Frenchman, he having built 
a fort and made his home there many years, growing rich 
on the furs bought from the Indians, who at that time were 
thick in the land. It was here that his wife — ‘Constance of 
Acadia’ — acquired unlimited power over the savages by living 
among them as one of them and teaching them the simpler and 
gentler arts of civilization. It was here, during the absence of 
her husband, that she successfully defended the fort against 
their white enemies and put them to flight. The boys of the 
club rowed the artist down to Coflintown and walked with him 
over to Port Latour in search of the remains of the old 
fortification. 

On their return, while passing through a clump of pines not 
far from Coflintown, Don said to Barry: “Here is the place 
where the club played ghosts and captured a cap and sword 
from an officer of a war ship.” 

“How was that?” asked the artist. 

“A man-of-war came into the mouth of the channel and 
spent several weeks surveying the harbor for chart purposes. 
The purser got acquainted with a pretty girl living not far from 
this, and pretended to make love to her. He visited her in full 
uniform with side arms, and cap with the newest gilt band 
more than two inches wide. We got wind of the time of one 
of his visits and came down, each one dressed in the longest 
robe available from our supply, and hid ourselves in this clump 


28 


AIR CASTLE DON 


of trees. At midnight we heard him clamping along in the 
darkness on his way back to his boat, and when he got oppo- 
site the place where we were lying flat on the ground, we rose 
up with a yell and with our robes flaunting about us, gave 
chase to him. He fled like a calf, dropping his cap, and finally 
losing his sword out of its scabbard. These we picked up and 
carried with us back to The Lady of the Lake.^’ 

“Did you ever hear from him after that?” asked Barry, 
when he recovered from his merriment. 

“Not a word,” Don replied. “What account he gave of 
himself when he reached the ship, never reached the shore; nor 
did he ever come on shore again while the ship was here.” 

“Evidently Acadian ghosts were not to his liking. But 
does The Lady of The Lake Club do much of that sort of work 
among the sinners who happen here occasionally?” 

“Oh, no!” responded the mild-mannered Most Sovereign 
Potentate of the club; “there is no need of a vigilance com- 
mittee in such a place as this. We’ll confess, however, that we 
once tried to cure a very bad case of foul-mouth by taking a 
boy who was affected with it down to the river, and scouring 
his mouth with soft soap, sand and water. The remedy 
appeared to be effective for awhile, but when he removed to 
another place it is said that the disease broke out worse than 
ever. Our outside work is mostly confined to widow work.” 

“Please enlighten me — what kind of work is that?” 

“There are several women in the neighborhood whose 
husbands were lost at sea. Some of them are in poor circum- 
stances, and we do what we can to keep their wood-piles from 
getting low, and if their garden or potato-patch needs looking 
after we offer our services, for all of us know how to work.” 

“Young gentlemen,” and the artist spoke with deliberation 
and emphasis, “your titles are rather top-heavy, and your club 


AIR CASTLE DON 


29 


clothes are a bit gaudy and flimsy, but there is no discount on 
your deeds. By way of expressing my approbation of your 
aims I shall, while I am here, paint a panel for your club 
quarters; and I hope that it will give you as much pleasure as 
you have given me.” 

This was such an unexpected honor that the club greeted 
the announcement with a three times three, and the ghost yell 
with which they vanquished the purser of the man-of-war ship. 


CHAPTER III. 


DON MAKKS two moves. 

Don’s days were not all spent in reading and dreaming and 
leading gentlemanly excursionists around the region. Family 
needs required that he should pick up pennies wherever they 
could be had for the equivalent of work. When in the spring 
the herring were going up-stream he stood all day long upon 
the rocks and dipped them into his herring barrel, and when in 
the fall the eels were going down-stream, he stood on the 
bridge till twelve of night ensnaring them with his net, for both 
herring and eels were easily turned into cash. He mended 
holes in the highway, picked rock-weed when the tide was out, 
shingled shanties, cleared the slabs from the gangway of the 
little saw-mill, turned oats in the kiln of the grist-mill, and 
planted potatoes or dug them. When the wild berry season 
was on, he made them pay tribute; and when the rabbits were 
on the run in winter, he turned many of them into the family 
larder. He hated a gun, but was never averse to fishing 
tackle, and so first and last he was worth at least as much as 
his salt came to. 

One day he was ten feet underground scooping earth into 
a bucket as a well digger, when Peter Piper, who was at the 
windlass over his head shouted down the opening: “Come 
up, lad; here’s a mon a’ the way frae Argyle that wants to see 
Don Donalds.” 

Argyle was thirty miles away. He knew no man there, 
and wondering what his errand could be, Don climbed the 

(?,o) 




AIR CASTLE DON 


31 


bucket rope, hand over hand, begrimed with mud, presented 
himself to the dapper little gray haired man who awaited his 
appearance. 

“You have been recommended to us for a teacher,” said 
the man without ceremony. “My name is Thomas Tubbins, 
and I have come down to engage you for the fall and winter 
terms. Will you come?” 

“But I have never taught, and I’m only fourteen years of 
age,” Don replied, in astonishment. 

“You are well enough qualified, that I have found out 
already,” said Tubbins, “and that you are big enough and strong 
enough to handle anybody we’ve got in our school I can see 
with my own eyes. Say yes, and we’ll settle the rest in no 
time. School is to begin week after next.” 

“I must first go home and see what they say about it 
there,” Don replied, rather overwhelmed at this summary way 
of doing business. 

“Oh, I went down to the house first, and your father said 
yes, providing you thought you could manage a school. It’s 
between us two now; if you’re not minded that way,. I’ll hunt 
up somebody else.” 

Don stood hesitating when Peter broke in with: “How 
long halt ye between two opinions. The Scriptures bid ye to 
do with all your might whatsoever your hands find to do; see 
Ecclesiastes nine and ten.” 

“I’ll go,” said Don, acting rather upon his own judgment 
than upon the texts Peter was inclined to fling at him. 

“You will board at my house ; there is nothing else for me 
to say; so, good day.” And Mr. Tubbins walked away with- 
out deigning another word or look. 

“Blunt as a peekax and straight as a crowbar,” was Peter’s 
comment as Tubbins disappeared over the wall into the high- 


32 


AIR CASTLE DON 


way. ‘‘Ye’ll ken him a’ right withouten ony deectionary. 
But ye maun feenish the well afore ye take the schoolmaster’s 
rod.” 

“Of course,” responded Don, at the same moment making 
for the rope and sliding down to the bottom of the well again, 
well satisfied with himself and all the world besides. 

He had resumed his labors but a short time when he called 
out: “Peter, I’ve struck a pile of money!” 

“What do ye mean?” asked Peter, thinking that Don was 
making sport of him in the fullness of his spirits. 

“There is money here in the dirt,” and Don threw a num- 
ber of black coin into the pail, saying: “Pull the pail up and 
see for yourself.” 

“Lord help us!” Peter exclaimed in alarm, while he turned 
the coin over in his hand; “I hope Providence isna goin’ to 
spoil ye by puttin’ gowd tinner your feet now that ye’re elected 
to become a teacher o’ bairns.” But he presently added with 
a sigh of relief: “Ye’re delivered frae temtation, lad, for the 
stuff turns to dust though ye try it never so little.” 

They were working through an old cellar over which a 
house had gone up in fire many years before. The total num- 
ber of coin discovered were few and of no value. Being Span- 
ish pistareens made of adulterated silver, they were so 
thoroughly corroded that they broke and crumbled like so 
much clay. The owner of the premises happening along was 
informed of the discovery, and became so excited that he 
ordered Don out of the well and went down himself to see what 
he could find. He was of such ample girth that he was like 
a cork in the mouth of a bottle. Before he could be brought 
to the surface again half a dozen men had to be called. The 
only way they could get him out was by rigging a derrick and 
pulling him up by block and tackle, 


AIR CASTLE DON 


33 


He was so blown and red when he reached the surface and 
was dumped on the grass to recover himself, that Peter look- 
ing upon him with a grim peppery satisfaction, muttered to 
himself: ^‘Gin the hole had been deeper the auld coof would 
ha’ broken through into the bottomless peet, an’ then he would 
ha’ looked redder than he is now.” 

When Mr. Pauncefort was able to stand up, being a man 
of active suspicions and dormant honor, he looked at Peter 
and Don and intimated that they might have found something 
of value and concealed it about their persons. 

At this Peter shook his fist in the man’s face and said in 
great anger: “Pll work no more on yon well tho’ ye gae 
wi’out water thro’ a’ eternity;” and he stalked off, followed by 
Don, who, though he said nothing, was white with wrath. 

Pauncefort attempted to call them back to their work, but 
his appeal fell upon deaf ears. 

“The mon has no more respect for the ten commandments 
than he has for the sermon on the mount,” growled Peter, “an’ 
that’s why he thinks there’s nae bottom to onny body else’s 
morality an’ Chreestianity. In body he’s as beeg as puncheon, 
but in soul he’s as sma’ as flea. Gin ye see a mon wha’s 
always spiren’ for faults in ither people, ye may be sure he’s 
as full o’ holes as a sieve.” 

Don’s time was now mainly spent in repairing the little old 
sealskin trunk that had long lain in the garret, and in packing 
into it his personal belongings preparatory to his rapidly 
approaching departure. It was a proud and exciting morning 
when he mounted the outside of the stage by the side of the 
whip, after having condescendingly received the parting 
salutes of che family, and the coach with its full fare of pas- 
sengers rolled over the bridge on its way to Argyle. 

At the end of the bridge Peter stood with uplifted hand as 


34 


AIR CASTLE DON 


a peremptory sign for the coachman to pull up. The stage 
stopped, but the whip protested that he had no room for an 
extra passenger. 

Nevertheless Peter climbed to the place where Don sat, 
and with the utmost deliberation and solemnity said: “Ye 
mind, lad, Revelations ten and second, where the angel set his 
right foot upon the sea, an’ his left foot on the earth? That’s 
a safe trick for an angel ; but na lad like you should try it on. 
Keep baith o’ your feet on solid land. When ye’re an angel ye 
can cut up angels’ capers.” Mid the laughter of the passeng- 
ers, the blushes of Don and the anathemas of the whip, Peter 
hobbled down to the road again and watched the coach till it 
rolled out of sight. 

This was Don’s first coach trip and the ride through the 
pines and over the barrens, around the head of harbors and by 
the foot of lakes filled him with keen delight. At noon he 
reached his destination, sorry that his journey was at an end. 

“Punctual as the spring swallows,” said Tubbins by way of 
greeting. A minute afterward Don and his trunk were in his 
snug quarters. Having brushed and washed away the dust of 
travel he went down to an ample dinner, of which Tubbins 
remarked: “It is better than you will average here. We 
knew that the piney woods would give you an extra appetite, 
and so we have put on extra fixings. Everything is in readi- 
ness for you at the schoolhouse, and I have cut a fine birch 
switch and placed it on the wall behind your desk in full sight.” 

“I hope that I shall not be obliged to use it,” said Don, 
who had no stomach for compulsory virtues. 

“Hope you will, sir,” Tubbins said bluntly. “A school 
without a rod is like a church without a Bible;” and the chief 
school committeeman looked at Don and sniffed at him as if 
he had detected the odor of heresy in his garments. 


AIR CASTLE DON 35 

Juvenile nature in Argyle was as timid and gentle as the 
lambs on the hillsides, and there was no occasion for the use 
of the birch, save once. A raw girl, fifteen years of age, from 
the first of Don’s appearance became infatuated with him, and 
spent most of her time in the school-room in pouring out upon 
him from her great, sky-blue eyes a flood of amatory glances. 
The young master threatened her with the rod if she did not 
look more at her books than at him. The threat proving 
unavailing, he called her up before the school and gave her a 
couple of taps on the palm of her right hand. They were so 
gentle, however, that the girl, regarding them as a favor, 
smiled in his very face, and went back to her seat to resume 
her looks. The school giggled, and Don relinquished all 
attempts to subdue the fervor of her eyes, although they, 
instead of conquering him, chilled him like the staring eyes of 
a codfish fresh from the deep. 

Saturdays were days of freedom and ecstasy. With Tub- 
bins’ boat at his disposal, Don rowed and drifted among the 
hundreds of islands of Argyle Bay like one roaming in fairy- 
land. For change, he would take Tubbins’ old white mare and 
ride up among the Tusket Lakes, where among the hundred or 
more crystal-clear water gems, he would fish and dream to his 
heart’s content. Like “ Tan Pile Jim,” he could scarcely feel 
the necessity of getting ready for another world when this one 
looked so beautiful. 

The winter was not so pleasant-; the deep snow was diffi- 
cult to wade through, and the fierce congealing blasts were 
hard to face. His fireless room was like the interior of an 
iceberg. At bedtime he buried his head under the ample pile 
of quilts, but only to find, when the morning came, that every 
opening where his breath had found vent was spangled with 
frost-flakes, which, however beautiful, were like jewels set in a 


36 


AIR CASTLE DON 


refrigerator. At the schoolhouse, not over tight at best, Jack 
Frost played all sorts of pranks notwithstanding the wood 
went into the great stove at the rate of a tree a day. Trials 
have their uses, and in the absence of outdoor attractions, 
teacher and scholars made advances in their work at a gait 
that delighted Tubbins. 

“I did a good thing for Argyle when I pulled you out of 
that well in Barrington,” he said to Don one day, after putting 
the school through a committee inspection. 

‘T am glad you think so,” Don responded simply, blushing 
to hear himself praised. 

“Even Milly Hatfield has caught the study fever,” said 
Tubbins, referring to the girl with the codfish eyes. “That’s 
because she doesn’t worship you as much as she did. I 
thought for awhile that we should have to remove her from 
school, she looked at you so steadily. Seeing so much of you 
has disenchanted her;” and Tubbins chuckled over his own 
sapiency. 

With the return of the green leaves and the singing birds 
Don resumed his voyaging among the islands and his rambles 
among the lakes. A great change was taking place in him. 
He felt as though he must plume his own wings and take a 
flight into the great world. His elder brothers, with the irre- 
sistible instincts of Americans, had already gone over to the 
States. One was supposed to be in Boston, in an apothecary 
shop, and another in the same city making ready for a voyage 
around the world in a clipper ship. Another was somewhere 
in the interior of Massachusetts taking an academic course of 
study; and still another was somewhere in New Hampshire 
making his first experiments in preaching, upon a country 
congregation. 

Seeing the topmasts of a schooner peeping over the tree- 


AIR CASTLE DON 


37 


tops of one of the harbor islands one Saturday morning, Don 
rowed off and boarded her. To his surprise he saw that she 
was named The Milly Hatfield, and when he reached the deck 
he was still more surprised to learn that the captain was Milly’s 
father. He soon learned that the captain and his crew were 
getting ready for a trip to Boston. 

“When do you sail?” Don asked. 

“One week from to-day, at eleven sharp, wind and weather 
permitting,” 

“Will you take me for a passenger,” said Don, seized with 
a sudden inspiration. 

“Certainly — half a dozen of you, if you wish ; and you have 
done so much in the way of packing Milly’s head with common 
sense, the trip sha’n’t cost you a cent.” And the dry old cap- 
tain looked at him so quizzically, Don felt as if a package of 
needles had been using him for a needle-cushion. 

“But I am in earnest.” 

“So am. T.” 

“Thank you. I’ll be on hand for the trip.” 

“Coming back this way?” 

“Of course not.” 

“Have you received permission from home?” 

“No,” said Don with emphasis, tossing his head with a 
swaggering .swing. “I guess I can take care of myself.” His 
experience in school had puffed his vanity and independence to 
a dangerous extent, and he was ready to lock horns with 
almost anything in the way of adventure. 

“Very well; if you can risk it. I’ll do the same; but I hope 
you have laid in a good supply of sand and grit. Boston isn’t 
Barrington, you know. And a youngster like you makes a 
small showing among the old elephants of a city.” 

But Don was not to be frightened. On the Friday follow- 


38 


AIR CASTLE DON 


ing Tubbins paid him an even fifty dollars, after deducting his 
board. 

On Saturday morning he rowed his young boarder out to 
the Milly Hatfield, and found her just at the point of raising 
her anchor. 

“If the Yankees prove too much for you,” said he, “come 
back to Argyle and we will give you the school for the next 
season. And if you stay here long enough, perhaps Captain 
Hatfield will give you his daughter, and throw the vessel in 
to boot.” 

The allusion to Milly almost destroyed the possibility of a 
sentimental separation from the jocular Tubbins, and Don 
replied with inward ire: “You may be sure that Til never 
come back to Nova Scotia to live; no, not for all the girls and 
all the vessels in the province.” 

“Well, here’s a good-bye to you, and good luck to you 
wherever you go,” said Tubbins with strong feeling as he went 
over the rail and turned his boat to shore. 

The Hatfield pulled her anchor to the cathead immediately, 
and after disentangling herself from the many islands of 
Argyle Bay, pointed her head directly for Boston. If she had 
been as big as The Great Eastern, her capacity would have 
been inadequate for the cargo of expectations Don carried 
secreted under his vest. 

Midway the Bay of Fundy the vessel ran into a gale of 
wind that raised such a tempestuous sea, Don was turned into 
a hive of miniature volcanoes. In the agony of his throes he 
thought of Peter Piper’s last words, and from the bottom of 
his soul wished that instead of putting both feet upon the sea 
he had been wise enough to glue them to the land. When 
fairer weather returned his spirits went to the masthead again, 
and the horizon once more became roseate with youthful hopes 
and anticipations. 


CHAPTER IV. 


IN THE CITY OF NOTIONS. 

Don’s head was packed with points concerning the possi- 
bilities of boys. From the parental fountain, from the Sunday 
school corner, from the pulpit, and from the pages of divers 
books that gave patent recipes for getting on in the world, he 
had acquired a stock of principles and examples sufficient to 
equip a regiment of boys. Even a bishop had laid his hand 
upon his frowzy head of hair and predicted for him success and 
distinction. 

By the most approved processes it had been drilled into him 
that many a boy who began his career barefooted had reached 
conditions in life in which he was able to wear a different pair 
of shoes for every day in the week. It had not occurred to 
him that all boys — and girls, too, for that matter, are born bare- 
footed. Much less was he aware that in spite of the best foot- 
wear no means had yet been devised by which one could 
entirely avoid an occasional stubbing of one’s toes against 
unforseen obstructions. Being so full of the idea of wearing 
patent leather shoes and walking on paved streets, there was 
not enough room left for him to think of things which might 
joggle his understanding and pitch him forward on lines not 
in keeping with a strict perpendicular. Fortunate it is for 
boys that their hatbands are not measured by their thoughts, 
for a hatband several miles in circumference would be an 
inconvenient thing to carry on one’s head. 

( 39 ) 


40 


AIR CASTLE DON 


The Hatfield was approaching her destination when the 
lookout at the fore shouted: “Land, ho!” 

The inexperienced eye could see only three purple spots on 
the horizon ahead, but the captain recognized in them the Blue 
Hills, and the Wachusetts and the Monadnock mountains. 
Presently the whole coastline rose out of the sea like a blue 
cloud, and Boston Lighthouse could be seen pencilled dis- 
tinctly against the sky. Passing the frowning fortifications of 
the harbor the Milly Hatfield dropped her anchor a short dis- 
tance from the end of Long Wharf. The dome of the capitol 
and the gray shaft of Bunker Hill monument seemed to Don 
to be among the wonders of the world. But what most 
impressed him was the forest of steeples, for he thought where 
there were so many churches there must be few chances for a 
boy like himself to come to harm. 

In the midst of his reflections the customs’ officer pulled 
alongside and soon after was rummaging his trunk with scant 
respect for its contents. Don consoled himself for the dese- 
cration by watching him while he performed the same cere- 
mony for the personal baggage of the captain and his crew. 

“Now that you are here,” said the captain to Don as soon 
as the officer had disappeared, “where are you going to 
put up ?” 

“At Covert’s boarding house on North Square,” was the 
prompt answer. “That is where my brothers put up when 
they are here.” 

“Very good, my lad; then we’ll keep each other company; 
for that is where I always stay when I am in port. We will 
send our duds up by dray, and walk up ourselves, for as soon 
as you set foot within a city, you must tighten the strap around 
your pocket book and make a business of seeing how little 
money you can spend. Pocket books in a place like this soon 


AIR CASTLE DON 


41 


become flabby unless you keep the stufiing in them as long as 
you can.” 

Don thought of his fifty dollars and felt quite sure that it 
would be a long time before his wealth could take wings to 
itself and fly away. 

The most verdant thing in all this world is a lad dropped 
from the heart of the country into the heart of a city for the 
first time, except, perhaps, the lad who is dropped from the 
heart of the city into the heart of the country for the first time. 
Don had heard of Boston as The City of Notions, but had 
vague ideas as to the origin of the phrase. Now he was sure 
that he understood why the words were used; the variety of 
buildings, the diversity of the people on the streets, the multi- 
tude of things offered for sale, the crookedness of the thor- 
oughfares and the lack of uniformity among the vehicles made 
it all as plain as day. Later in his experience he enlarged his 
understanding. 

Ascending a hill, and turning through a narrow dingy 
street they entered a small triangular space which the captain 
said was the square for which they were seeking. At the top 
of the hill they came to the head of the square, and midway the 
block that formed one side of the square they stopped in front 
of a comparatively modern red briek four-story house, down 
the stoop of which ran a pair of highly polished brass railings. 
At the door they were met by a middle-aged man who had a 
flaring set of false teeth, a thiek shoek of blaek false hair, a pair 
of narrow watery eyes and an artificial smile that was a perpet- 
ual fixture along the straight lines that answered for lips. 

“Hello Hatfield!” exclaimed a thin nasal voice which came 
from the top of the nose instead of from the bottom of the 
lungs. ‘T was just thinking of you and bluenose potatoes. 
You know you promised to bring me fifty bushels when you 


42 


AIR CASTLE DON 


came over again. My boarders think there is nothing in the 
world like bluenose murphies.” And he shook Hatfield by the 
hand with the heartiness of an apparent friend. 

'The potatoes are on board all right,” Hatfield responded, 
laughingly, and with a deep sub-bass of a voice that, by con- 
trast, made Covert’s voice sound like the squeal of a mouse or 
the squeak of a door-hinge. “But let me introduce you to 
this boy; he’s a brother of the Donalds tribe, of whom you 
have had four here already. He’s out to take a look at the 
world, and wants you to take him in for awhile. He’s going 
to become a millionaire and will stay with you until he can get 
his bearings.” 

“I’m rather particular about my boarders, but I know that 
his tribe is a good one, and I’ll take him in with pleasure,” 
said Covert, extending a hand, the touch of which made Don 
feel as if he were shaking an eel that had just been pulled from 
a mud-hole. The looks, voice and touch of the man con- 
vinced Don off-hand that either the church steeples had failed 
to do their duty by him or else had failed to make any 
impression upon him. 

They were now in the reception room, where they were 
met by Mrs. Covert, a short, thick, red-skinned woman, whose 
studiously benevolent face seemed to make immediate amends 
for her husband’s abounding deficiencies. Don thought that 
she was certainly the better half of the man, and he immedi- 
ately jumped to the conclusion that the only excuse he had for 
sharing the premises with her was the fact that he was her 
man-of-all-work. 

Hatfield began to make inquiries about the Donalds 
brothers in the hope that some of them were in the house, or 
at least in the vicinity. 

“The one who is the first officer of The John Bertram sailed 


AIR CASTLE DON 


43 


for China yesterday,” said Mrs. Covert. The one that 
preaches in New Hampshire, together with the one who is 
studying in Worcester, came down to see him off. They left 
the city this morning. The one who used to be in the apothe- 
cary store on Blackstone street left the city some time ago for 
some place in Rhode Island. 

Seeing that Don was bitterly disappointed, she immediately 
added, with a great show of sympathy : “I hope that you will 
not take this news too much to heart. You are rather young 
to be so far away from home with nobody to look after you. 
I liked your brothers and shall like you. Make our house 
your home and consider me and my husband as your friends, 
for we will do all we can to make the house pleasant for you 
and to help you along.” 

“And all this for only five dollars a week, with washing and 
lights free,” squeaked Mr. Covert, with ostentatious bluntness, 
and looking at the lad as if estimating his resources and the 
amount of squeezing he would bear. 

Don thought that this was a somewhat singular way of 
making things pleasant, and he began to make a rapid mental 
calculation, the effect of which was by no means reassuring. 

“My husband never thinks of anything else besides dollars 
and cents,” said the woman. “If he were burying me he’d 
think more about the dollars it cost than he would about the 
dead and lost. I’m not built that way, as the saying is, though 
if he were to die, I should immediately begin to look for a man 
who was born with a soul in him.” 

Under this withering attack Mr. Covert, so far from shrink- 
ing, only extended his habitual smile up his nose and into a 
tenuous laugh that was thinner than the upper notes of a worn- 
out singer. 

“My wife has so much soul,” he squeaked, “that if I were 


44 


AIR CASTLE DON 


not here to look after her, her boarders would crowd her into 
the almshouse in less than six months. If she were to die I’d 
hunt up someone who had sense enough to keep her heart 
under lock and key.” 

A maturer acquaintance with this pair of human oddities 
convinced Don that there was a good business understanding 
between them notwithstanding the apparent discrepancy 
between their dispositions. Mr. Covert made profitable traffic 
in his wife’s seeming generosity, while she craftily utilized his 
ostentatious meanness. He used her beaming face by way of 
attracting customers ; and she used his mercenary spirit by way 
of securing prompt payments and limited expenditures. 

“Don’t take either of them too seriously,” said the knowing 
Hatfield, when both husband and wife had left the room; “but 
keep your eyes peeled for both of them. If you fear the man 
too much he’ll skin the hide from you, and if you trust the 
woman too much, the effect will be about the same. The only 
difference between them is, she rows with one oar on one side 
of the boat, and he uses the other one on the other side. 
Between the two oars they keep going ahead and manage to 
lay up considerable of their boarders’ money.” 

Don spent several days looking about the city and getting 
used to the stir and noise of the metropolis of The Old Bay 
State. The streets were so crooked that he made short excur- 
sions at first, but little by little he acquired a courage which 
enabled him to extend his adventures to Boston Common and 
the old historic elm tree, which, in view of his acquaintance 
with the monarchs of primeval forests looked both dilapidated 
and disreputable. And the Frog Pond, with its seven by nine 
dimensions carefully bounded by granite curbing, and its shal- 
low bottom paved with cobble-stone, and its dirty water kept 
from evaporating altogether by the squirtings of a fitful foun- 


AIR CASTLE DON 


45 


tain, suffered immensely by comparison with the crystal-clear 
waters of the ponds and lakes he was familiar with in the 
vicinity of home. The State House on the hill caused him to 
remove his hat while he wandered to and fro among the cor- 
ridors, but The Old State House at the head of State street, 
notwithstanding its colonial associations, failed to gain from 
him more than a passing contemptuous glance. The Old 
South Church, and The Brattle Street Church, with its osten- 
tatious cannon ball sticking like a black punctuation point 
among the drab-painted brick were grievous disappointments. 
Later, however, when his Boston tastes were more generally 
and intelligently developed he swore by the old landmarks with 
all the enthusiasm of one to the manor born, for there is 
nothing like education for the multiplication of exclamation 
points in one’s every day life. 

Hearing of The Maeonion as the place where Theodore 
Parker, the most distinguished preacher of Boston preached, 
he went out to see it. When he came out of the building his 
nose pointed the wrong way, and before he knew it he was 
walking among green fields in Roxbury. He was badly lost. 
If it had been a case of being lost in the woods of the primitive 
wilderness of the government lands in Nova Scotia, he would 
have turned around three times to the right, and three times 
to the left, and then with three sumersaults to finish the cere- 
mony, he would have started on a bee line for home as surely 
as if he were guided by the north star or a pocket compass. 
But he did not dare to cut up any such capers as this among 
the people who were passing. Seeing the Old South steeple 
in the distance, he steered a straight course for that, and by 
good luck reached his boarding house in time for supper. 

“What did you do when you discovered you were lost?” 
asked one of the boarders. 


46 


AIR CASTLE DON 


“I hailed the first good looking man I met and requested 
him to tell me the way to Mr. Covert’s house.” Don could 
not quite understand why the table broke into such violent 
laughter at his answer. 

“What did he say?” inquired Covert, whose smile had more 
semblance of genuineness than it had shown for many a day. 

“He didn’t say anything, but looked at me in a puzzled way 
and then hurried on. He must have been a deaf and dumb 
man.” 

The laugh broke out afresh, and Don began to get red and 
angry. 

“The next time you get lost,” said Covert, “ask the way to 
North Square. Although this square is respectable enough in 
itself, it is at the head of Ann street — the worst street in the 
city; and everybody knows where the worst street is, .just as 
every man knows his neighbor’s worst points.” 

“Your own bad points are so conspicuously prominent that 
no one needs be at the trouble of hunting for them,” said Mrs. 
Covert, slyly. 

“Of course not,” Covert retorted, with seeming anger. “I 
wasn’t cut out for an angel, as you were.” 

The boarders had become so accustomed to these false 
sword thrusts that they took no notice of them, except to put 
themselves on guard against any fresh demands the two might 
combine to make upon them. 

The boarders consisted of fifteen men and nine ladies. 
The first time Don took his seat at dinner he thought that the 
ladies were the most wonderfully and fearfully arranged affairs 
that were ever created. And he tried to imagine the excite- 
ment that their appearance would make in a place like Barring- 
ton. It was the first time he had ever seen the sex in all the 
glory of widely expanded hoops, elaborately shirred waists, 


AIR CASTLE DON 


47 


and innumerable soap curls arranged around the upper coun- 
tenance like a semi-circle of scroll-work. The rings of their 
fingers made him think that there must also be bells on their 
toes. 

The lady who sat at his right hand was passably comely, 
but aided by the fashions she was celestially beautiful. She 
had the manners of a young girl and he fell violently in love 
with her and worshipped her for a week. He cultivated the 
curls on his own head and contemplated making material 
improvements in his own wardrobe during that time. At the 
end of the week, in answer to a fatal inquiry, Mrs. Covert said: 

“Miss Arabella Agincourt is of good family, and has some 
means, but she is between thirty and forty, has man-made teeth 
and a very unsuccessful way of besieging the affections of men. 
She has tried each one of your brothers, but without favorable 
results. What her object is in dallying with you is more than 
I can conjecture. She may possibly think that by lavishing 
her kindness upon you she may regain the chance to hook 
some one of your brothers. She is very anxious to become a 
sea captain’s wife and has made desperate attempts to capture 
your eldest brother. I shall not say anything against her, for 
she will make a most excellent old maid.” 

This drastic dose ended Don’s illusions and set him to 
thinking about more serious things. He determined to visit 
his clerical brother and get his advice as to what his course 
should be. He had never travelled by railway and when he 
took his seat in a car for the first time his sensations were 
novel. While wondering how any power on earth could draw 
after it such a palace-like vehicle, the train started. It was his 
impression that an earthquake had taken it in tow, and when 
the speed increased to an express rate, he was quite sure that 
the first earthquake had been reinforced by another. He sat 


48 


AIR CASTLE DON 


bolt upright and held on to the seat in front of him. The 
screeching of the whistle at every road-crossing was a greater 
mystery than he had ever heard preached from the pulpit, and 
vastly more trying to the nerves. Observing that the other 
passengers evinced no alarm, he slackened his strained muscles 
and, after a little, ventured to take snap-glances at the whirling 
landscape. 

On arriving at the scattered hamlet of Puddlewit, in New 
Hampshire, he asked the station agent, who aped the manners 
of a major general and spoke the language of an ignoramus, 
to direct him to the house where his brother — giving his name 
— was staying. 

^‘Rev. Donalds haint stayin’ nowheres in this place at pres- 
ent,” was the curt and impatient reply. And then, for a 
wonder, he voluntarily expended a little more breath in add- 
ing: “From what I hear, he won’t come back here no more. 
He’s such a shadow of a fellow, it’s a wonder he can stay any- 
wheres long enough for anybody to make out the shape of his 
body. If you’re gonter chase him about, you’d better straddle 
the wires and send yourself along by electricity. If you want 
to get back to where you came from, the train will be along in 
two hours from now.” 

Don was so hurt at heart, and withal so angered at the 
agent’s boorishness, he turned his back on him and began to 
pace the platform. A passing farmer seeing his restlessness 
and woe-begone appearance, spoke kindly to him, and after 
melting him into a communicative mood, insisted upon taking 
him home to dinner. 

“I’m a deacon in the church to which your brother 
preached,” he said at the dinner table, “and he left word with 
me to forward his mail to Logville, Maine. We liked him 
well, but a bigger church got hold of him and pulled him away 


AIR CASTLE DON 


49 


from us. It is all right, however; if a minister does not look 
after his own pie and pudding, no one else will do it for him. 
‘Covet earnestly the best gifts’ is what the Bible says; and I 
suppose that the rule is intended to work for the benefit of the 
ministers as well as for the benefit of the churches.” 

The good man pressed Don to spend the night with him, 
saying: ‘Tt will give you a chance to look over the country, 
which your brother said was as pretty a bit of scenery as God 
ever decorated the earth with. He rambled about here a good 
deal and made use of the things he saw in such a way in the 
pulpit that we had to keep our own eyes open to see what was 
going to come next. Most of the preachers we have had here 
gave us such common things in such a common way that I 
have wondered why the patent medicine men have not bottled 
them up and advertised them for sleep-producing remedies, to 
be taken just before going to bed.” 

Don returned to Boston on the next train, and the follow- 
ing day went to Worcester in search of his brother, but only 
to learn that he had removed to a distant field to take charge 
of an academy. 

Seeing that the stranger lad was much cast down by this 
intelligence, the principal sympathetically drew from him some 
account of his desires and purposes, and, in the end urged him 
to enter the school, assuring him that he could easily find work 
enough to provide for his board, while the tuition fees might 
remain a debt until such times as he was able to pay it. 

Although strongly inclined to accept the offer, Don, on 
second thought, revolted against the idea of putting a mort- 
gage on his future. “Pay as you go” was a cherished rule, 
and he determined not to become divorced from it. 

Thanking the kind principal for his generous interest in a 
total stranger, Don turned his back upon the attractive build- 
ings and beautiful grounds and returned to Boston. 


CHAPTER V. 


AN AT'TIC PHILOSOPHER. 

Don’s resources were rapidly dwindling. It became neces- 
sary for him to reduce his expenses and to procure employ- 
ment. Believing in doing one thing at a time, the first thing 
he did was to consult with Mrs. Covert concerning a lower rate 
of board, which he thought he could obtain by taking a smaller 
and less advantageous room. 

“Of course,” said Mrs. Covert cautiously, “ if you are get- 
ting out of money, you must fit your outlay to your 
necessities.” 

“In other words,” interrupted her husband, “five dollars is 
our lowest rate, and if you are not able to pay that amount, you 
must make way for those who can. We do no business for 
charity.” 

Such brutal business bluntness as this turned Don into an 
icicle so far as further confidences were concerned, and he left 
the house without a word. In less than half an hour he had 
contracted to board with Widow Williams, on the same square, 
for two dollars a week. His accommodations included an 
attic room and two meals a day. 

“When it is more convenient for me, I will take dinner, 
also,” he said, while making his terms. But by a harmless 
prevarication he concealed his intention of going without his 
dinner until such times as his finances would allow of his 
engaging full board, and he did it with such an air of genuine 
independence that the widow had no suspicion of the truth. 

( 50 ) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


51 


Shouldering his trunk with more of triumph than of humil- 
iation, he crossed the Square and mounted to his attic. Nor 
did the limitations of his quarters diminish from the elasticity 
of his spirits; he had taken the bull by the horns and consid- 
ered himself master of the situation, such as it was. The 
Wellington of Waterloo could not have experienced any 
higher satisfaction. 

The attic had but one window which commanded a lone- 
some view of a wilderness of monotonous slate roofs and chim- 
neys. The room was barely high enough for him to stand 
upright in, and the furnishings consisted of a single bed, a 
wash-stand, a lone wooden chair, and a faded piece of carpet 
placed in front of the bed. 

Being neat and scrupulously clean himself, he was glad to 
notice that, although the paint of the room was battered and 
worn, the bed and the floor were neat and clean. 

“Well,” he said, after surveying his surroundings, “I am 
nearer Heaven than I have ever been before; that’s one satis- 
faction. I’ll just imagine that I am a crow swinging in the top 
of a Nova Scotian pine. The next thing in order is for me to 
get something to do, so that I can put myself in the way of 
moving a little lower down in the direction of a room that has 
four good square walls. That low place under the eave looks 
as if it were an invitation to mice, and, possibly, to rats. And 
now I wonder what sort of people I have fallen among this 
time.” 

His curiosity was soon to be satisfied. Mrs. Williams was 
the relict of a sea captain, who lost his life upon the coast of 
Madagascar. Although he had been dead several years; she 
was still wearing mourning. She owned. the house in which 
she lived, and was trying to retain it by keeping boarders on a 
small scale. She was tall and thin, with a pale face that bore 


52 


AIR CASTLE DON 


marks of struggle and anxiety, which, however, did not efface 
the signs of refinement and sweetness which seemed to dom- 
inate her features and her manners. 

After Don had taken possession of his attic, he went down 
to the sitting room, where Mrs. Williams introduced him to 
her only daughter, Leonora, a rather petite, pretty brunette of 
eleven years. 

“I hope you will be good friends,” said the widow to Don, 
^‘though I must forewarn you that she is an incorrigible bunch 
of mischief. Besides her, I have a son who is about your age, 
as I should judge — an only son between whom and you there 
is a very striking resemblance. Bert is rather old-seeming 
for one so young, but for that very reason he is a great help 
and comfort to me. He’ll be glad when he learns that I have 
taken a boy-boarder, though possibly, he may undertake to 
oversee you as he tries to oversee Nora, here.” 

^‘He’s an awful boy, and will wind you around his finger 
like a piece of thread unless you are as spunky as I am,” Nora 
volunteered to say, while her eyes showed that she was indulg- 
ing in a bit of precocious slander against her brother, just for 
the fun of the thing. 

“I am very fond of awful boys,” replied Don, solemnly; 
“and I suppose it’s because I am such an awful boy myself.” 

Nora looked at him keenly, and seeing the latent mischief 
in his eyes, broke into a ripple of musical laughter. “I think 
you will do,” she remarked with candid indefiniteness. “Bert 
will find his mate when he comes home to-night and begins to 
get acquainted with you.” 

“Do you think that there will be a fight?” asked Don, with 
comic seriousness. 

“Yes; just such a one as we are having.” 

“Then no harm will come to either of us; for I am sure 


AIR CASTLE DON 


63 

that you are treating me very kindly, and that, of course makes 
me feel friendly toward you. 

The mother seemed to enjoy the juvenile blade-testing that 
was going on in her presence. It was plain that she took a 
motherly pride in her children, and was not given to drawing 
the string of the youthful bow too tightly. It was also evident 
that Don’s self possession and general manner gave her a good 
impression of him. This impression was deepened when he 
voluntarily gave a short account of himself — how he came to 
be in the city, and how he happened to make application to 
her for boarding. Nora listened to him seriously, as he told 
his brief story, and once or twice almost cried as he told of his 
disappointments and perplexities. 

On going back to his attic, Don congratulated himself 
upon being in a house that had two young people in it, and 
especially upon having a landlady who appeared to possess a 
soul. While he was leaning with both arms upon the window- 
sill, and with his face turned pathetically up to the blue sky — 
for he was thinking of home — there was a sharp rap at the 
door. 

On opening the door he stood face to face with one who, 
in size, age, complexion, features and entire appearance, was 
the very picture of himself. But for the more stylish clothing 
he would have thought that he was seeing himself in a mirror. 
He recalled Mrs. Williams’ remark, but was scarcely prepared 
to look upon his double. 

“I beg your pardon,” said the visitor, “I am Bert Williams. 
My mother has just told me about you, and Nora gave such a 
rosy account of you, and both said we looked so much alike, 

I came up without ceremony to tell you that I am glad that 
there is another boy in the house.” 

'Thank you,” Don responded cordially; "come in and take 


54 


AIR CASTLE DON 


a seat,” and he handed to him the lone chair with such precise 
politeness, and withal with such a gleam of unmistakable 
humor that Bert laughed outright. His amusement was 
increased when Don, taking his seat upon the edge of the bed, 
added, ‘‘please excuse me for occupying the sofa.” 

Bert thought to himself: “It is as Nora says, ‘This coun- 
try chap is nobody’s fool.’ ” Then giving way to a sudden 
apologetic impulse he said: “It may give you some satisfac- 
tion to know that I am an attic boy myself — I occupy the one 
on the other side of the house; for the fact is, that in order to 
keep our heads above water we are compelled to give the best 
rooms in the house to the boarders who can pay for them.” 

“I am glad to have you for a neighbor,” Don replied sin- 
cerely. “A pair of attic boys ought to get along together 
nicely. I’d rather be a boy in an attic than an old man in a 
palace.” 

“So would I; but I’d hate to live in an attic till I became 
an old man. Old people ought to have the best that goes. 
There’s mother, for instance — if I thought that she would have 
to live in my attic when she got old — or in a place that was no 
better than that. I’d do something desperate to prevent it.” 

At this moment the supper-bell rang and the two went 
down together feeling as if they had known each other for 
years. Mrs. William and Nora exchanged glances of satisfac- 
tion when they observed how respectfully attentive Bert was to 
the newcomer. The boarders — seven men and four women — 
all of the commonest class — took little notice of the stranger. 
Their own incessant struggle for existence and for the most 
ordinary necessities of life made them comparatively indiffer- 
ent to the existence of others. They were moving along on 
that dead level where people seldom become very bad or very 
good, and where they are content — after a sort — if they can 
manage to make both ends meet. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


55 


After tea Bert invited Don into what he called his hole 
under the roof. It was very much like Don’s attic except that 
it had two windows which looked down upon the Square and 
over the pavement to the Mariner’s House opposite. There 
were two chairs in the room, which, upon the whole, was fur- 
nished slightly better than Don’s quarters. But what attracted 
Don’s attention more than anything else was a little library of 
about two hundred and fifty books, that appeared to be nicely 
bound, and to be made up of authors of national and general 
fame. 

Seeing that his visitor was interested in the books, Bert 
said: “They didn’t cost me a cent, and they are a queer lot. 
I am a sort of boy of all work in Ticknor and Field’s Old 
Corner Book Store, up on Washington street. It’s the fun- 
niest old shanty you ever saw. They say it was built when 
the cows went to pasture up in that part of the city — in the 
times when the Puritans talked religion through their noses 
all day and went about looking like scarecrows. That was 
before they had the Boston Tea Party we have heard so much 
about. Well, I get only five dollars a week, and, of course, 
can’t afford to buy books. But every book that gets bound 
wrong end foremost — with the beginning in the middle, or the 
end at the beginning, or bottom-side up, or mixed up generally 
— as if the binders or the printers had been on a big drunk — 
every book of this kind is given to me. Those that I want to 
read I can easily piece together enough to get the hang of 
them and those I find too dull to read, I let stand on their 
heads to their hearts’ content. So it doesn’t matter whether 
the books are bound right or wrong, so long as I can manage 
to get out of them all that I care to get. 

“That Old Corner Bookstore, by the way, has more big 
literary customers and visitors than any other store in the 


56 


AIR CASTLE DON 


United States; and they come there so often that they talk to 
me as if I were the son of every one of them. These books,” 
pointing to a number that stood by themselves, “were given 
to me by the persons who wrote them. 

“Mr. Lowell made me a present of his Bigelov/ Papers — 
and there are piles and piles of fun in them. Doctor Holmes 
gave me that Breakfast Table book, and his Wonderful One 
Hoss Shay is the greatest rib-tickler I ever got hold of. Mr. 
Thoreau, though he is such a farmer-like oddity, gave me that 
Life in the Woods. I get lost in that sometimes, it carries me 
so far away from the city. Longfellow and Whittier gave me 
those volumes of poems, and when I am a head taller I shall 
probably prize them, even more than I do now. That tall 
Emerson and little Whipple gave me their Essays, but they 
are like boxes of raisins, you can’t eat much of them at one 
time. Big Bayard Taylor gave me the Travels, and you can 
see for yourself that they have been pretty well thumbed. 
Grace Greenwood and John G. Saxe gave me that volume of 
funny poems, and that Haps and Mishaps — and they are down- 
right good, too. And the rest, that you see there by them- 
selves, were also given to me by the persons who wrote them 
— I’ve got all their autographs in the books and when I am 
old enough, I suppose I shall be mighty proud of them. 

It is big fun to be in a store where such chaps meet almost 
every week. If you keep your ears open, you hear some funny 
things, for they joke one another like a lot of boys just out of 
school — but you have to keep a sharp lookout for their fine 
points, for it is as easy to lose them as it is to lose a fine 
needle.” Bert ran on not boastfully, but by way of entertain- 
ing his visitor, as he tried to explain. 

Don looked at the boy with growing admiration and 
expressed his opinion by saying: “Well, if you do live in an 


air castle don 


57 


attic, you are on the ground floor so far as books and authors 
are concerned, and that ought to be a great inspiration to you.” 

“Inspiration to what?” asked Bert pertinently. 

“To reading and all that sort of thing, you know.” 

Bert laughed as he said: “If you were in a grocery store 
and should be inspired to eat the candies and other goodies 
your inspiration would be likely to get into trouble. Not so 
much on account of the value of the stuff you ate as on account 
of the business you neglect. Ticknor and Field are kind old 
chaps, but if you got to being too much inspired among their 
books, they’d bounce you in a minute. You are there to look 
after their business and if you didn’t attend to it, they’d make 
it their business to know the reason v/hy, and that mighty 
quick, too. They are up there on that old corner to make 
money; and even if their writers and the big book-bugs didn’t 
make dollars and cents for them they’d get swept out of the 
way like so much old paper rubbish. That’s the way the world 
wags in the city, and I guess it wags the same way in the 
country. It’s got so here that unless a preacher fills his pews 
and draws in holy money, his religion goes for nothing. 
People are measured by what you can squeeze out of them and 
not by what you can squeeze into them.” 

Don began to see that this city boy was a good deal sharper 
than himself; the rush of life and the pressure of competition 
had forced him to sink his foundations down to hardpan. 
There wasn’t much balloon or cloud stuff in his make-up. He 
said to him: “You talk as if you were fifty years old. Do all 
Boston boys talk that way?” 

“You have to be pretty old to get along here; but I’ll admit 
that there are lunies here as well as elsewhere who do nothing 
but sail among the clouds.” 

Don thought of Peter Piper, and he told Bert about him, 


58 


AIR CASTLE DON 


and quoted some of his sayings, winding up, however, with the 
information that the old fellow was, in spite of his worldly 
wisdom, as poor as some of the-people he saw on the streets 
of Boston. 

“He was so long getting hold of his wisdom that it prob- 
ably came too late to do him any good except in the way of 
giving it to others,” said Bert, half shutting one eye before he 
ventured to hint at the solution of the mystery of useless 
knowledge and experience. “And the trouble with most of 
us youngsters is, we are unwilling to profit by others’ experi- 
ences. We flounder into the stream at the risk of drowning 
when we might go safely and dry shod over the bridge that’s 
been built for our benefit. Next to the old fool who never 
profits by experience is the young fool who never profits by 
advice.” 

The boys spent the evening together, and when Don rose 
to go to his own attic, Bert, placing his hand upon his shoulder 
said, earnestly: “I like you, Don Donalds. When you want 
any of my books or anything else I have got, come in and help 
yourself. I think that you have been a reader. If you happen 
to get hold of any of the upside-down, or middle-at-the-begin- 
ning fellows, it will be good fun for you to guess how they 
ought to go. If you don’t want to take the trouble of hunting 
up the connections, you can read right straight along, and in 
that way you will hit more funny things than you can imagine. 
If you want to see the fun that’s going on in the square, there’s 
a window for each of us; come in whenever you want to look 
out.” 

When Don went back to his attic he saw something that 
was a source of great pleasure to him. The fragment of faded 
carpet had been removed and a much larger and brighter piece 
substituted for it. In the middle of the carpet stood a neat 


AIR CASTLE DON 


69 


little table with places in it for odds and ends. The lighted 
lamp stood in the center of a pretty snow-white mat, and by 
the side of the table stood a very comfortable rocking-chair 
with a clean tidy fastened by new blue ribbons. On one of the 
upright walls were two framed prints which pleased Don as 
much as anything. He was so charmed with the changes 
wrought by these additions, that he went back to Bert, and 
begged him to return his visit forthwith. 

Smiling, yet embarrassed, Bert said in reply to Don’s 
expressions of pleasure: ‘^Mother, Nora and I put our heads 
together after tea to see what we could find to add to your 
furniture and fixings. There was little we could get, but the 
place looks better than it did before. One reason why I kept 
talking to you at the rate I did while you were in my room, 
was to give mother and Nora a chance to finish what they were 
doing here. Now, if you will take some of my books and 
place them upon your table, you can imagine yourself a garret 
genius or anything else you please.” 

‘T am very thankful for the trouble you have taken,” Don 
said gratefully, ‘Tut I hope that you have not put yourselves 
out in putting these extras in here. When the Coverts turned 
me out this morning, I began to think that the Boston steeples 
had missed their mission, but now that you have taken me in 
and conspired so thoughtfully for my comfort, I shall think 
better of the steeples.” 

“Don’t trust too much in steeples,” Bert replied, somewhat 
bitterly, “they point themselves so high that they miss the 
most of what is really going on in the world. I sometimes 
think that they have as little influence over things below as 
they do over the sun, moon and stars above. If you’ve got 
money, the church is a good place to get into; if you haven’t, 
it’s a capital place to keep out of. My mother is a good 


60 


AIR CASTLE DON 


woman, if there ever was one, and she is a member of the 
church, but as she is poor, it’s precious little notice she gets 
from the steeples. Perhaps I ought not to speak in this way. 
It’s more than likely that I am soured on the churches, and 
when one sours on anything, he’s as unreasonable as a balky 
horse.” 

'‘Seeing that your mother is a church-woman, I shall con- 
tinue to think well of the steeples; if we cannot depend upon 
them, what can we depend on?” 


CHAPTER VI. 


LOOKING FOR A SITUATION. 

“You will find this hunting for a situation a pretty tough 
business,” said Bert to Don, the next morning, when the latter 
started with him on the way to the Old Book Store, intending 
from that point to begin his explorations for employment. “I 
am Boston born and have lived here all my days, but I never 
knew what a nobody I was until I began to hunt for work and 
a chance to live. In the first place, everybody wants you to 
have a character that is as long as the Ten Commandments, 
and just as plainly written by some Moses, or some one equal 
to him. Then, in addition, you must be sharp enough to take 
all the advantage you can, and have no one take advantage of 
you. Besides, they’ll require that you should reside with your 
parents or some relatives who will keep a constant sharp-stick 
watch over you every hour that you are not on duty. Most of 
them want you to work for nothing during the first six months, 
or the first year. When they begin to pay you anything, the 
amount is so small it almost needs a microscope to find it. 
If you go into anything in the shape of a store, you must have 
both the manners and the dress of a young gentleman, and 
must act as old and be as patient as an old gentleman of fifty, 
and yet be ready to be pulled and hauled about as if you were 
born a slave. You can’t count on sympathy nor anything else 
of that sort. I thought I had a trump card when I first 
started out, and told people that my mother was a poor widow, 
and that I was an only son who was trying to help her along; 

(6i) 


62 


AIR CASTLE DON 


it didn’t count any more than so much blank pasteboard. Of 
course there are exceptions, otherwise I should not have had 
any show at all. After awhile I happened to hit my present 
employers, and they have done the square thing for me right 
along, though they have made me toe the mark for all I was 
worth.” 

“You are giving me a pretty black picture,” said Don, with 
a feeling of dismay. 

“It’s black enough, but not very pretty,” Bert replied 
laughingly. “It is better to know the truth from the begin- 
ning, for most of us boys have such big expectations that it 
is best to give them a bit of a tumble from the start. We can 
then go about our business as if we were on a hunt through 
Africa, and when the pull comes, instead of whining like 
babies, we can pull all the harder. You stand as good a chance 
to stumble upon a decent place as I did. Of course you have 
got certificates of character with you, signed by your minister 
and the justice of the peace, and the doctor and the rest of the 
big bugs?” 

“Not a certificate,” Don replied blankly. “I never thought 
of such a thing. I wanted to come to Boston, and so I came 
at the first opportunity.” 

“You must be awful green in some things!” Bert 
exclaimed, forcibly and bluntly. “What did you do before you 
came here?” 

“I taught school.” 

“Taught school — a youngster like you! Well, that knocks 
me to pieces. Then you must know something, and must 
know how to write a good hand. That’s two things that any- 
body can satisfy himself about. People here are great on 
faces, and perhaps they’ll take your face for a certificate of 
character, just as I did from the start. North Square isn’t the 


AIR CASTLE DON 


63 


best place in the world to hail from as a boarding place, yet 
if anybody goes to prying into our family af¥airs, I think we 
can stand all the light they can bring. But here I am, at my 
place of business. You can go up to the Common and ramble 
around till about nine o’clock; it will give you time to think 
and to harden up your skin. When you begin your search, 
go at it with an iron-clad determination. And if your heart 
takes a notion to sink, prop it up with stiff timber, and remem- 
ber that there are lots and lots of boys in a worse fix than you 
are, and they are not all bad boys, either.” And with this 
queer jumble of discouragement and encouragement, Bert 
turned the key in the door and disappeared. When he went 
home to his dinner, he asked Nora if Don had got home. 

“No,” said Nora,” he hasn’t had time to get his dinner yet. 
He doesn’t get here till about two o’clock.” 

A sudden suspicion flashed through Bert’s head; he 
believed that Don went without his dinner. He looked his 
worry so plainly that Nora asked him what the matter was. 

“Oh, nothing, sweet,” he replied quickly, knowing that if 
Don was keeping a secret it would be treason for him to whis- 
per his suspicions to either Nora or his mother. But during 
the whole afternoon there were wrinkles between his eyes — 
wrinkles of deep thought. 

When he came home at night and found Don in the attic, 
a single glance at his face revealed the futility of the day’s 
search. Yet Don received him with a cordial smile. 

“Haven’t hit anything yet?” he asked, explicitly. 

“Nor come within a thousand miles of anything, though I 
have been firing myself into every place I could get into 
decently. In most of the places I got fired out as quickly as 
I got in.” 

“Going at it again to-morrow?” 


64 


AIll CASTLE DON 


“Of course! One has to learn how to shoot before he can 
hit any mark. I’m learning, and that’s one consolation.” 

“Shoulder aches a bit from the kick of the gun, doesn’t it?” 

“Oh, yes, a little bit; but that’s nothing.” 

“Well, you’ve got pluck if you are a little green,” said Bert, 
beginning to laugh in response to the mirth he saw in Don’s 
eyes, a mirth which he knew was provoked by the grim cate- 
chism to which he was subjected. “Keep that sort of thing 
up and you’ll come out somewhere, yet.” 

“Yes; out at the elbows, and out at the toes,” Don said, 
doggedly. “And out of Boston, too,” he added, after a pause. 

“But didn’t you get so much as a nibble?” persisted Bert. 

“Yes, I got two; but when they asked for my certificate of 
character, and where and with whom I lived, my face wouldn’t 
pass for a cent, and so I passed out as I went in.” 

Bert was silent and troubled at this, for it was as he feared 
it would be. “Well,” he said at length, “there’s no use in 
nursing trouble. Shake off this day and get ready for another. 
And, by the way, why can’t you write home and get somebody 
ta fit you to a recommendation. It may be of use yet. Cer- 
tificates of character are of course puffy things, but like swim- 
ming bladders or cork, they sometimes help one to keep on 
top of the water till he can strike out for himself.” 

Don said he would write and get a whole battery of certifi- 
cates; and he wrote accordingly. 

But the times were dull, boys were thick, the unemployed 
innumerable, and business men as touchy and as short as if 
applicants were as pronounced intruders in the world as bottle- 
flies are in a domestic establishment. 

Ten days passed away, and although Don was indefatigable 
in his efforts he was apparently no nearer success than the first 
day he started out on his weary round. Most of the posted 


AIR CASTLE DON 


65 


notices, and a large proportion of the advertisements answered 
were but the disguises worn by unadulterated meanness — ^baits 
of men who were planning to secure slaves that would do their 
work without cost. 

Every evening Bert would call upon Don to report, and his 
company and persistent encouragements did much to keep 
Don’s spirits up. 

One evening Don began his usual report by saying: 
*‘Well, I have made a big dash this afternoon.” 

Bert at once became much excited, and pressed for a full 
explanation. 

had about made up my mind that I was tired of running 
around this town like a beggar, when, at the bottom of the 
Square I saw a notice that a boy was wanted to ship on board a 
vessel bound for Japan. I went in and after talking with the 
man who keeps the place, agreed to sign the papers 
to-morrow.” 

Bert flushed with excitement, and said almost angrily: 
‘‘But you will do no such thing. That place is the beginning 
of perdition to nearly all who step across the sill. It is kept 
by a land-shark which is the meanest and the most cruel of all 
the sharks that swim the sea or roam the land. Perhaps you 
don’t know what a land-shark is. I’ll tell you: It is a man 
who tells you that he has got a nice fat thing for you ; a chance 
to see the world on a fine ship, and all that sort of thing. He 
^promises to fit you out with a sea-rig and everything else you 
need, and to advance you money besides. When you have 
signed the papers and begin to find out things, you will dis- 
cover that for your rig and your advance money he has shipped 
you before the mast and taken a mortgage on your wages 
from the time you leave port till the time you get into port 
again. When you get to sea you’ll be kicked about by brutes 


66 


AIR CASTLE DON 


till you become a brute yourself. If you live to get back again 
you’ll be landed without a cent. Then they’ll take you to some 
low doggery and keep at you till you are forced to ship again 
under the same conditions. And so they keep it up indefin- 
itely, unless by some special good chance you escape from 
their clutches. I know the scoundrel who wants to take you 
in, and if my mother was not such a good woman I’d swear at 
you hot and heavy for being deceived by such a dog-livered 
funk as that.” 

Don had listened to the sugary words of the land-shark, 
but had no knowledge or intimation of what lay back of the 
apparently considerate and friendly offers of the unscrupulous 
schemer, who intended to sell him soul and body. Bert’s hot 
words opened his eyes, and he became alarmed. 

‘Well,” said he desperately, “I have passed my word, and 
that is something I have never gone back on yet.” 

“Passed it for what?” Bert exclaimed indignantly. “Did 
you see the papers? Did the fellow give you any hint of the 
conditions of the bargain? Don’t say a word to me yet,” he 
added, as he saw that Don was about to speak. “Come with 
me and see how quickly I’ll straighten this thing out, and con- 
vince you that if a man promises to send you straight to the 
New Jerusalem that is no reason why you should allow him to 
put a rope around your neck that will drag you to the other 
place by express. 

Don followed him across the Square to the Mariner’s 
House, which was supported by a religious association, and 
kept by a religious superintendent in the interest of men who 
followed the sea. 

As soon as they entered the office, Bert, addressing a good 
iooking man. said: “Mr. Truesdale, I want you to go with us 


AIR CASTLE DON 


67 


to Lammers den. He’s trying to play one of his old tricks 
on my friend, Don Donalds.” 

This intimation was sufficient, coming as it did from a lad 
with whom the superintendent was well acquainted, and he 
immediately followed them. On the way Bert informed him 
of what had taken place between Don and the land-shark, and 
also of what Don had said about keeping his word. When 
they entered the den, Lammels quailed. Nor was he much 
assured when the superintendent said: 

‘‘You have been making one of your bargains with this 
boy,” pointing to Don. “Let me have the papers, please.” 

Lammels knew the extent of Truesdale’s authority, and 
passed the papers to the superintendent who, notwithstanding 
the evil scowls of the schemer, read them to Don from begin- 
ning to end. 

“When you said that you would sign the shipping papers 
to-morrow, did you mean that you would sign such papers as 
these?” asked the superintendent, turning to Don. 

“No, sir,” was the emphatic answer. “He said he would 
fill in the blanks and have the papers ready for me to sign in 
the morning.” 

“But he would have gotten your signature without reading 
to you the terms of the contract. Are you willing to sign now 
that you know what the conditions are?” 

“No, sir,” said Don, more emphatically than before. 

“Lammels, you have been trying to inveigle a minor into 
your clutches; I’ll keep these papers and report you to the 
police,” and the superintendent put the papers into his pocket, 
and turned to leave. He was, however, detained by the piti- 
ful whining of the land-shark, who begged hard for mercy. 

Don declared that he himself was partly to blame for not 
looking more closely into the terms of the contract, and in 


68 


AIR CASTLE DON 


case of prosecution he should be obliged to testify to that 
effect. 

Turning to Lammels, the superintendent said, decidedly 
and severely: ^Tll keep the papers, but if you are not arrested 
it will be owing to the good graces of your intended victim. 
I am tired of your villainies, and if I can get a good square case 
against you Fll send you to the penitentiary without mercy; 
that is where you and all your tribe belong.” 

“Now, my lad,” said Truesdale, while they were walking 
across the Square, “before you make any more bargains with 
strangers, come to me and let me know what you are about. 
The city is full of schemers, some of whom are apparently 
respectable people, but who for the sake of making a few dol- 
lars would stop at nothing. The Mariners’ Home is open to 
you at any time ; we have an excellent reading room over there, 
and you are welcome to the use of it at all times. I am glad 
that you have Bert Williams for a companion; he’s got an old 
head on his young shoulders, and it will be worth your while 
to listen to what he says. 

When the boys had reached the attic region again, and 
while they were sitting in Bert’s room, he said, referring to 
their former conversation about church steeples: “Well, Don, 
I’ll candidly confess that the steeple punched a hole through 
that rascality in a very neat way. But for that Mariners’ 
Hom.e many a poor fellow would be ruined in less than no 
time.” 

“Yes, the steeple did the punching, but you did the prompt- 
ing,” Don replied, “and I begin to realize that you have saved 
me from making a fatal mistake. I’ll confess that I am as 
green a country punpkin as ever set foot in a city; but if I am 
with you much longer I think that I shall begin to show some 
other colors.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


69 


Bert laughed in a shame-faced way, yet used Don’s gener- 
ous compliment as an excuse for anotherattack, saying, without 
any beating of the bush: “Now look here, Don, I have got 
another bone to pick with you. That dinner business is a 
dead fake. You go without your dinner. And you are green 
enough to think that you have covered up the deception by 
saying that when it is more con-ve-ni-ent for you, you will 
take your dinner with us. You might have known that that 
dodge was too thin for anything, and that I would find you 
out.” 

“How did you find it out?” asked Don, giving himself 
away in the confusion produced by the suddenness of the 
attack. 

“By just guessing at it till I knew it was so,” Bert replied 
rather indefinitely, and with some embarrassment, for he had 
not failed to observe that there was that in Don’s manner that 
warned him that he was treading upon very delicate ground. 

“Have you said anything to your mother or Nora about 
this?” was the next somewhat portentous question. 

“Of course not,” Bert said in a hurry. “What you kept as 
a secret from me, I felt in honor bound to keep secret from 
them. But the bare thought of you going hollow all through 
the middle of the day has knocked the bottom out of my appe- 
tite time and time again. And when I have left my dinner 
almost untouched, worrying about you, mother and Nora 
would dig questions into me so deeply and rapidly I was com- 
pelled to burrow like a groundhog in order to keep out of 
their reach.” 

Much relieved to find that his affairs were not being dis- 
cussed by the little family, and grateful to Bert for his manly 
reserve, Don said: “Your honor and sympathy and generos- 
ity are worthy of one of Sir Walter Scott’s knights, and I can 


70 


AIR CASTLE DON 


talk with you freely. I’m too poor to pay three dollars — the 
full rate for an attic boarder, so I cut my garment according 
to my cloth. I do not suffer, and therefore I don’t want to be 
pitied. It isn’t a bad plan, this going without one meal a day; 
it makes you value the other two all the more. Continue to be 
a good fellow by keeping silent about my dinner. 

“But look here, Don Donalds;” this pride of yours may be 
a good thing to have, and it may grow on the bushes where 
you have lived, yet I will tell you this : Mother is no fool ; she 
can guess as well as I. I am sure that she is already bothering 
herself about this dinner affair. Nora is as much of a Yankee 
as her mother, and she is continually asking where you go to 
dine. She is such a kitten-hearted thing that she will almost 
go to pieces if she finds that you are in the habit of carrying 
an empty stomach one-third of the time.” 

Don was silent at this new aspect of the case. He saw that 
his expedient was too transparent to be concealed. Gathering 
boldness from his silence, Bert said: “Let us split the differ- 
ence and call it two dollars and a half a week, and then you can 
eat your dinner like a man and feel as proud as you please.” 

“It’s no use, Bert,” Don exclaimed, suddenly becoming 
confidential; “my pocket-book is far gone with consumption 
already; and I must stick to my plan even though you pro- 
claim it from the cellar to the house-top.” 

“Well, here’s my ul-ti-ma-tum; I believe that’s what they 
call it, and if you don’t comply with it I’ll sulk at you with 
forty-horse power all the rest of the time you are here. I 
spend more than fifty cents a week for mere nothings. I’ll 
save that money and bank it in you. You’ll take it every Sat- 
urday night and nobody shall know anything about it. That 
will make up for your whole board. Of course, it will be a 
loan, to be paid back when you get ready. If you run entirely 


AIR CASTLE DON 


71 


short, you shall stay with us till there’s a change in your 
circumstances. Do you consent? You must take the fifty 
cents, or the fifty sulks — one or the other.” 

Don began to laugh ; and the more he thought, the merrier 
he became. He recalled what Nora had said about her brother 
and thinking of her was like looking at the sun through a rift 
in the clouds. “When I first came here,” he said, “Nora told 
me that you were an awful boy, and that you would wind me 
about your finger like a piece of thread. I begin to under- 
stand what she meant; you are an awful fellow, in your way. 
I thankfully accept your offer, but — ” 

“No matter about the buts,” Bert interrupted quickly. “I 
knew you had lots of common sense beneath your piles of 
pride, and that I should find it if I kept on digging for it. If 
you had not accepted my offer, I think I should have taken 
advantage of our looking so much like twins to put you in 
my clothes and to send you down stairs to dine turn and turn 
about with me, knowing that while you were at the table I 
could have slipped into the pantry and sneaked my dinner. 
It would have been a puzzler for mother and Nora, and great 
sport for us.” 

“Of course you are joking, but our present scheme is 
almost as ridiculous as that would have been except the fact 
that we can cover it up better than we could have covered 
any such game as that. If your mother should find us out 
I am afraid that she will not have a very good opinion of me.” 

“Make yourself easy,” Bert replied, seeing that a cloud had 
crossed Don’s face, “and come to your dinners like a man. 
Our secret will be as safe from her as if we had joined the 
Masons or some other calathumpian society.” 

Their little fifty-cent romance, of which neither the widow 
nor the daughter had any suspicion, lasted two weeks. 


CHAPTER VII. 


DON HAS A GREAT DAY. 

Don received mild reproaches from home for starting out 
into the world before his beard was grown, and the letters were 
filled with anxieties tempered with hopes and blessings. His 
replies made no mention of his predicaments ; he was too proud 
to indulge in whining, and withal, too considerate to burden 
his friends with tales of his sorrows. Judging from his letters 
one might have thought that the far away boy was sitting in 
a tree-top of this wonderful world seeing sights and experienc- 
ing feelings that prompted only to notes of song. 

He got a long and glowing certificate of character signed 
by rustic dignitaries whose names were of no more account 
in Boston than the sands upon the seashore, and for the reason 
that though he pursued his weary rounds in search of work, 
he seldom or never found anyone who was willing to notice 
the stranger enough to look at his credentials. He again 
began to have hard thoughts about the steeples, for he had not 
yet learned that churches and worldly aflairs more often than 
not, have as little to do with one another as old maids have to 
do with old bachelors. 

Like a far of¥ almost forgotten dream came the old words: 
“The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be as one born 
among you, and ye shall love him as thyself; for ye were 
strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord, your God.’’ 
He remembered the words of The Man of Nazareth, “I was a 

(72) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


73 


stranger, and ye took me in,” but he became quite sure that 
either they had never been heard in, Boston or that they 
had been outgrown by ih'-” people. 

On sloppy or tlireatciiing days, lie avoided business places, 
for he had learned by bitter experience that in bad weather 
men s tempers had the rheumatism and that their words were 
like dragon’s teeth. On such days he took refuge in The 
Mariner s Home, where he spent part of the time listening to 
the vivid yarns of the old sailors, who in the stormiest weather, 
like ducks and geese, were in the best of moods. What jol-v 
tars they were! What floods of recollections of the stormy 
deep and of foreign climes, and of perils and adventures the 
gusts of wind and splashes of rain set in motion! He almost 
regretted that he had not been sent to sea to roost with the 
blue-jackets among the yards and rigging of some far-going 
ship. The brutes on shipboard could not be more numerous 
or worse than those on land. He would as soon be bound 
hand and foot and delivered over to the cruel mercies of the 
sea as to be left unbound and delivered over to the equally 
cruel negligences of the land. 

Boys think as readily as men, and quite as readily does the 
black bile get into their blood when fortune frowns unkindly; 
and quite as readily, too, does the black tide set all their 
thoughts awry. But, thank Heaven, they are more susceptible 
to the saving grace of hope and the healing balm of forget- 
fulness, and far more readily than men do they take heart 
again. And so, though Don had his mumps he made quick 
jumps from the ’Slough of Despond’ to solid standing ground. 

Having formed the habit of reading the, daily press he 
had become so interested in current events as to find in their 
larger public scope influences which tended to diminish the 
magnitude of his private annoyances. All Boston and the 


74 


AIR CASTLE DON 


regions round about were rife with political excitement. By 
some inscrutable stretch of partisan meanness the great Daniel 
Webster had been refused the use of Faneuil for an address 
to his friends and constituents. 

“Daniel Webster shut out of Faneuil Hall!” exclaimed Bert 
indignantly, during one of their attic conversations. “Great 
Scott! What a pickle that is for Boston to be in! It’s enough 
to make one sick of the city.” 

Daniel Webster was one of Don’s idols, - and sympathizing 
with Bert’s indignation, he said: “I have always been taught 
that Webster was the world’s greatest statesman, yet here he 
is without honor in his own city. What kind of patriotism do 
you call that?” 

“No, not without honor,” was the quick rejoinder. “He 
comes to-morrow, and is to speak on Boston Common, and 
you will see the biggest crowd around him you ever saw in 
your life — yes, the biggest crowd you ever dreamt of. And 
it will be a crowd of honor, you may depend upon that. You 
are a lucky dog, for you can be one of them while I shall have 
to stay cooped up in that old store like a parrot in a cage. 
You’ll remember his looks and his words as long as you live. 
There is only one Daniel Webster in this world, and he is 
so great I don’t see where they are going to find a place big 
enough for him in the other world. One of the last things I 
did before I left school was to recite a part of one of his 
speeches, and the words made my blood hum as if I were a 
top.” 

“Do you remember the words now?” Don asked, carried 
away by Bert’s fervor. 

“I remember this much,” said Bert, sliding into the stirring 
sentences as easily as a ship slides into the sea at a launching. 
They were from Webster’s last speech in the senate of the 


AIR CASTLE DON 


75 


United States: ‘'For myself, I propose, sir, to abide by the 
principles and the purposes I have avowed. I shall stand by 
the Union and all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the 
whole country, according to the best of my ability, in all I 
say, and act for the good of the whole country in all I do. 
I mean to stand upon the Constitution. I need no other plat- 
form. I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall 
be my country’s, my God’s, and Truth’s. I was born an Amer- 
ican ; I will live an American ; I shall die an American ; and I 
intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that char- 
acter to the end of my career. I mean to do this, with 
absolute disregard of personal consequences. 

“That’s the kind of talk Webster gave usj” Bert went on, 
“talk that ought to lift everyone out of the mud of meanness 
into the pure sky-blue. And yet, confound it! We’ve got 
enough dirty politicians here in Boston to shut him out of 
Faneuil Hall. If I had them all in a bunch, FI boil them in a 
lye-vat and see if I couldn’t get some of the dirt out of them.” 

“Yes, you are at a boiling point already, and I don’t blame 
you,” said Don, “for men who would insult such a man as 
Webster are as bad as that land-shark Lammels, you hate so 
much.” 

“Lammels!” Bert exclaimed explosively; “why, he is one of 
the city fathers; he’s the alderman from our ward, and there 
are several others just like him who run their wards by 
whiskey and then try to run the city by the same kind of stuff. 
Most of our politicians are only fit for boot-blacks to the 
devil.” 

Don knew little about city governments, and less about 
politics in general and becoming interested in the knowledge 
that this city boy seemed to posses, he asked by way of inform- 
ation: “Isn’t Webster a politician?” 


76 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Bert flashed indignantly at his friend for an instant, but 
seeing that he was not trifling with him he replied: “Yes, he 
is a politician, only you spell it p-a-t-r-i-o-t, and that makes the 
same difference that there is between Satan and the angel 
Gabriel. And you’ll know well enough what I mean when 
you hear Webster to-morrow.” 

When Don reached the speaking place on Boston Common 
the next day, he found the space between the Frog Pond and 
the Public Garden filled with tens of thousands of people. 
And when the great statesman ascended the platform the wel- 
coming voice of the multitude was as the sound of many 
waters. When, after he was introduced by the chairman of 
the meeting, he waved his hand for silence the tumult sank to 
a dead stillness that was as impressive as the acclamation that 
preceded it. Nor was the calm disturbed save when some tell- 
ing point of the masterly address awoke the plaudits of the 
rapt listeners. 

From the outskirts of the vast crowd, by processes best 
known to a boy, Don edged his way through the mass little 
by little, till he reached the front of the platform on which 
Webster stood. Inch by inch, as if irresistibly drawn by the 
magnetism of the speaker, he wormed his way up the steps to 
the last one, where he sat with uplifted face enthralled by the 
high brow, the dark deep set eyes, the grave countenance, the 
deep voluminous voice, the magic words, the transparent 
thoughts and the calm mighty earnestness of the “God-like 
man” before him. And once when Webster, leaning slightly 
forward for an instant, looked steadily down into his eyes he 
felt as though he were expanding into the largeness of space 
itself. Nor was he again conscious of the world about him till 
the mighty shout which marked the last sentence of Webster’s 
last public speech brought him back to earth. Something in 





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AIR CASTLE DON 


77 


the boy’s rapt attitude drew the attention of the statesman to 
him, and while the applause was still thundering through the 
air he extended his hand to Don and greeted him with a grave 
earnest pressure that thrilled him with unspeakable pleasure, 
although for the life of him he could not keep the tears back 
while, for the first and the last time he gazed into the sad, 
mighty countenance of America’s greatest intellect. Weak- 
ened by severe labor, disappointed in his great ambition, over- 
burdened with patriotic anxieties, and, what was far worse, 
grieved by the rankest ingratitude, Webster returned to 
Marshfield, where, in a few short months his remains were 
deposited in the bosom of mother earth. 

The spell, which was never to be entirely broken, was still 
strong upon Don, when Bert, eager to obtain an account of 
the meeting, rushed into the attic as soon as he returned from 
the store and began to ply him with anxious questions. 

‘T shall never see or hear his like again, though I should 
live a thousand years,” said Don, breathing a long, deep sigh. 
“He made me think of the giant singing pines of Nova Scotia, 
and of the mighty waves I have seen beating against the Nova 
Scotian coast. All the steeples in the city couldn’t equal the 
greatness of that one man ; and, though you won’t believe me, 
he, Daniel Webster, shook hands with me at the close of his 
speech.” 

“You!” exclaimed Bert incredulously. 

Then Don explained till Bert believed. 

“Yet, the man who can speak like a God, and shake hands 
with a boy like a friend is shut out of Faneuil Hall by such 
rascally politicians as Lammels and his gang,” Bert exclaimed 
angrily, unable to banish from his mind the indignity to which 
his great ideal had been subjected. 

“But the fools wrought more wisely than they knew; if 


7e 


AIR CASTLE DON 


they had not shut him out he would not have spoken to fifty 
thousand people to-day,” said Don, possibly exaggerating the 
number of the vast audience. 

Don’s great day extended over several other days, for that 
one hour and a half of Webster remained so vividly with him 
as to obliterate the divisions of day and night and morning and 
evening. And it was while he was preoccupied with the one 
event that another — a second event happened, and welded 
itself to the first, so that the two thrilling experiences were 
identified with each other. 

On the third evening after the Webster speech, Bert, with- 
out the ceremony of knocking, about which he had always 
been scrupulously particular, broke into his room radiant with 
some new excitement. 

“What do you think, old boy!” he exclaimed, almost 
breathlessly. 

“Webster,” said Don, truthfully, “I can hardly think any- 
thing else. I am afraid that if my old friend, Peter Piper, were 
here, he’d say I was climbing Jacob’s ladder when I ought to 
be fighting my battles on solid ground of some kind.” 

“Well, I have a bit of solid ground for you,” said Bert. 

“What is it?” asked Don anxiously, beginning to feel that 
Bert had important news for him. 

“This afternoon I had to go into a bookstore to get some 
books to help fill out one of our orders, and there in the 
window was a notice — ‘Boy Wanted.’ So, as soon as I got the 
books, I asked about the notice, and said I knew a boy who 
might possibly suit them. Wickworth & Co. know me so 
well that they began to ask questions about you. I simply 
answered their questions without plastering on the praises. 
At the end I did venture to tell them about Webster shaking 
hands with you; it was a chance shot but it went straight to 


AIR CASTLE DON 


79 


the mark. The younger Wickworth is a great Webster man. 
He was down to the Webster meeting, and stood close by the 
platform, saw you there, noticed how you listened, and saw the 
great man shake hands with you. He liked your appearance, 
and in the end they said I might bring you up, for it was more 
than likely that you would suit. But they said they would 
only pay board for the first six months. Then they wanted to 
know how much we charged; I said three dollars and a half a 
week — and you know that is our regular price for those who 
board below the attic. They thought the amount was reason- 
able. So, there you are, you see, with a margin of a whole 
dollar a week, that is, if you mind your ps and qs to-morrow, 
and get the place. Their store is only a short distance from 
ours, and we can go and come together.” 

Don was much elated at the prospects opening before him, 
but there was one thing that cast a cloud upon the affair, and 
he said: ‘‘Bert, you are an awful boy, sure enough. How 
could you keep an honest look on your face when you said my 
board was three dollars and a half a week?” 

“That was straight business,” was the prompt reply. “I 
wasn't going to let them know that you were stowed away in 
an attic. It is three dollars and a half; but we will give you 
one dollar and a half to keep the attic; nobody else will take it. 
You must have something to keep you slicked up; if you don’t, 
you’ll get kicked out; slouches won’t pass muster in any kind 
of business. So, there is the whole thing as plain as a bee 
sting or a mosquito bite.” 

“Well, put that way, what you said about the board is 
right, and I’ll not say anything to contradict you when I see 
them.” 

“Of course it’s right — as right as a sermon — right for all 
concerned.” 


80 


AIR CASTLE DON 


On the way to the attic Bert saw Nora, to whom he gave 
a passing hint of the news he was carrying to Don. She 
wanted to know all about it, and being unwilling to wait, 
rapped at the door for admittance. 

“Have you really got a place for him, Bert?” she asked as 
soon as she had seated herself in the rocker. 

“He is plumb up against the door of a place, and if he 
doesn’t get inside it won’t be because he doesn’t deserve to 
get inside. It is as sure as anything can be in this uncertain 
old world.” And Bert smiled upon his sister so cheerfully 
she felt that it was as good as settled. 

Addressing herself to Don, she said earnestly: “Now you 
can get out of this horrid attic, and take a good square room 
down stairs, can’t you?” 

“Really, Nora, you are very con-sid-e-rate of your 
unworthy brother!” Bert interrupted with mock seriousness. 

“But you have a front attic with two windows in it that give 
you a full view of the Square,” Nora persisted, pluckily. 

“Since you and your mother brightened this room up, I am 
as contented as a bird in its nest,” said Don sincerely. “And 
being so near your brother, makes me doubly contented. I 
am no longer like a cat in a strange garret.” 

“If you are contented, I would rather have you near him,” 
Nora said with much satisfaction. 

“We are Two Boston Attic Phi-los-o-phers,” drawled 
Bert with his usual prolonged emphasis upon the big word, 
“and we are going to maintain our lofty reputation by sticking 
to good, round common sense in spite of all the little or big 
girls of Boston.” 


CHAPTER VIIL 


THE BACKBONE OF THE BEACK ART. 

Don knew something of Nature; of how sunshine, air, 
clouds, water, earth, and even rocks, are changed into potatoes, 
pumpkins, grass, grain, worms, birds, beasts, mankind — and 
womankind, also. He had gained many vague hints about 
these things from the various books with which he had become 
acquainted in his short life. 

But it was precious little he knew about the book business; 
of how ideas, authors, printers, binders, publishers and the 
public get jumbled or joined together in the processes of book- 
making, bookselling and bookreading. He was now about 
to learn something of The Black Art, from the author’s first 
dip into the inkstand to the publisher’s last advertisement set- 
ting forth the author’s unique genius and the publisher’s super- 
natural enterprise in introducing him to a long suffering and 
justly exacting public. The very backbone of The Black Art 
was to be laid open to his view; that is to say, he was to 
become acquainted with the business of bookselling. 

He had read somewhere of a venerable lady who tried to 
manage a refractory pig she had purchased in the market, and 
of the wonderful effects of a piece of cheese. The mouse hav- 
ing received the cheese, began to gnaw the rope; the rope 
began to hang the butcher; the butcher began to kill the ox; 
the ox began to drink the brook ; the brook began to quench 
the fire; the fire began to burn the stick; and the stick began to 
beat the pig; and so, the pig went over the stile, enabling the 

(8i) 


82 


AIR CASTLE DON 


matron to reach her home in time to save her pudding which 
she had left boiling in the pot. Don was to learn that if the 
author gets his cheese and the publisher saves his pudding, it 
is a sure sign of the success of all the intermediate processes 
of the whole business. 

The Wickworth firm was old and well established, but 
conservative in its methods and comparatively limited in its 
enterprise. The entire force consisted of the two brothers, 
the senior and the junior members of the firm, two general 
clerks, and a boy of all work. 

The elder brother, quite well advanced in years, was 
smooth-faced, benevolent in appearance and a prominent 
meinber of the large denomination to which he belonged, and 
of which he was a conspicuous office-bearer. The junior 
member had been a colonel in the Mexican war. His black 
and somewhat neglected hair, and bristling and 'fiercely 
brushed beard were apt to give the impression that the chief 
object of his existence was to make people feel uncomfortable. 
In religious matters he was forward to make even his intimate 
friends think that he was a Philistine of the Philistines. In 
fine, the brothers were so different in appearance and in man- 
ners from each other that it was difficult to believe that they 
were the offspring of the same parents. 

Bert introduced Don to the partners on the morning when 
the engagement was to begin, and Don was quickly 
turned over to the colonel for the preliminary examination. 
Contrary to the expectations he formed from the appearance 
of the colonel, he was questioned kindly, encouraged gener- 
ously, and bidden to take up his shop duties immediately. 

“A boy who has been so kindly noticed by Daniel 
W ebster,” said the colonel gravely, “ought to be able to com- 
mend himself favorably to a good many other people.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Don thereupon began his work with a light and resolute 
heart. He was to open and close the store, clean up and dust 
down, pack and unpack boxes of books, wait upon customers 
as opportunity offered, and do the outside errands of the firm. 

These outside errands formed the most important part of 
his duties. If books in stock were not sufficient to meet orders 
upon the firm, he was to go among the other stores, and in 
accordance with the courtesies of the trade, pick them up 
wherever he could find them. This required accuracy and dis- 
patch, but it was congenial because it involved trust and at the 
same time outdoor change. 

While making his first rounds in this outside department of 
duty he was at once recognized as a newcomer and an inex- 
perienced hand. He was accordingly subjected to occasional 
tricks and chaffing by the boys who had already passed their 
novitiate in the temples of The Black Art. Having been fore- 
warned by Bert that such would be his fate, he met his tor- 
mentors with unfailing good nature and gave as good as 
he got. 

There was only one instance in which he lost his temper, 
and this was in Phillips & Sampson’s store, where a very 
opprobrious epithet was applied to him one morning by a 
young underling of the store force. Don was not only 
described as verdant, but as something a good deal worse. 
Laying the books he had under his arms upon the counter, and 
turning to his tormentor, he said: ‘T will confess that I am 
green as compared with fellows of your stripe, but I am going 
to teach you that in speaking so disrespectfully to me, you are 
far greener than I.” And he seized him and shook him till 
the victim was ready to cry quits. 

It happened that one of the proprietors overheard the 
epithet, though it was spoken in an undertone, and Don see- 


84 


AIR CASTLE DON 


ing that he was present, said: '‘I beg your pardon, sir; but 
I draw the line of jest at the term used by your clerk, and if 
I had him in some other place he would not get off as easy as 
he has/' 

“It served him right,” said the proprietor; “and no apology 
is necessary from you; that should come from him.” 

The incident soon went the rounds of the stores, and 
thenceforth Don was exempted from annoyance. 

Deacon Wickworth having heard of the episode, called 
Don into the counting room and reproved him for letting his 
temper get the better of his business relations. 

The colonel followed him to the business room, and with 
twinkling eyes, said: “This is one of the things about which my 
brother and I differ. Without questioning his motives or 
lessening your respect for him, I desire to say, that I am glad 
you shook that whelp, but I am sorry that you didn’t shake 
him out of his boots and whip him besides.” Doubtless the 
colonel’s soldierly blood and experiences were responsible for 
his belligerent regrets. 

The clerks of the store had been disposed to sneer at Don 
because of the somewhat rustic suit of clothes he still wore, 
and they had also been inclined to attribute his belligerency 
to his rusticity; but now that the colonel had applauded him 
for enforcing due respect for his rights, they treated him as 
one of themselves. 

Bert soon heard of the incident through an acquaintance 
at the store where it occurred, and lost no time in telling it to 
his mother and Nora. As in duty bound, the mother while 
regretting the affront, also regretted the violent resentment 
provoked by it. Nora, however, clapped her hands, girl-like, 
and with sanguinary fierceness, very similar to that of the 
colonel, declared that she was sorry that Don had not torn 


AIR CASTLE DON 


85 


the very coat from his insulter’s back. This was such an 
unspeakably naughty wish for a young and gentle girl, that 
her mother began to reprove her with great severity. 

“Why, mother,” Nora interrupted, “what would you do if 
you were called by an awful bad name?” 

“Fd let it pass without notice; mere names can’t change the 
nature of the person to whom they are given.” 

“But if they were not right they would stir you up all the 
same, said Bert. “And though they might not set your arms 
going, as they did in Don’s case, they’d set your pale face 
flaming like dry kindling.” 

“And Fd scratch the eyes out of anyone that insulted me!” 
exclaimed Nora, indignantly. Bert and Nora being in the 
majority, the mother without acquiescing in their opinions or 
sympathizing with their feelings, remained discreetly silent. 

When the boys were in the front attic after tea, Bert said: 
“I overheard some of the folks in our store talking about you 
to-day. Mr. Phillips, who saw you shake that Bob Larkins, 
was telling Mr. Ticknor and Oliver Wendell Holmes about 
the fracas. He said you shook Larkins as a terrior shakes a 
rat, and then apologized to the house as though you were Sir 
Charles Grandison. The little doctor got his face all screwed 
out of shape he laughed so heartily; and he said that if Russell 
Lowell got hold of the story he’d make a whole Bigelow Paper 
out of it.” 

“Aren’t you stretching things a bit?” asked Don, coloring 
like a peach. “Business men and authors can hardly be inter- 
ested in such things as boys’ squabbles.” 

“Don’t deceive yourself about that! If Daniel Webster 
himself were to hear how his boy-listener got turned into a 
clothes-shaker he’d laugh in spite of all his statesmanship and 
dignity. Every man is but the ghost of a boy, and though he 


86 


AIR CASTLE DON 


should grow as gray and as cold as a cloud, the stories of boy- 
scrapes will set the ghost to grinning like a comic mask. I’m 
nothing but a boy, yet I keep my eyes and ears open to men, 
and I know how men talk over their boy-times to one another, 
and how they laugh about boy-scrapes. I haven’t been at 
Ticknor & Fields’ for nothing, nor even for five dollars a week 
only.” 

Bert not only spoke precociously, but he looked so prema- 
turely knowing that Don was slightly overawed, as was 
expressed when he said: “Look here, Bert! You talk about 
men being but the ghosts of boys ; but I solemnly believe that 
you are an old man masquerading in a boy’s skin; and some- 
times you make me feel as though you were never a real 
downright boy, such as we have in the country.” 

“I wish from the bottom of my heart that I had been born 
in the country,” Bert replied with a sigh; “it would have been 
something to remember. If you had been born and brought 
up in a city among the bricks and stones and the rattle of pave- 
ments and the everlasting rush of people, without a chance to 
see the country from one year’s end to another, you wouldn’t 
wonder at my carrying such a wrinkled old soul in such'^a 
young body. You’d feel as if you had been put in pickle in 
the days of Noah and had never had a chance to get out of it.” 

Thinking that he had touched a tender chord with too 
rough a hand, Don began to explain and to qualify his mean- 
ing, but was immediately interrupted with: “Oh, you need 
not be at the trouble of taking your shoes off, now that you 
have so effectually kicked me with them on. True, you made 
me feel bad, but it is such a goodish kind of badishness that I 
should not object to more of it. You may let the blood out of 
my veins if you will only refill them with some of the fresh stuff 
that runs in your own.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 8^ 

Then abruptly changing the subject, he asked: “How do 
you like Wickworth and company ?” 

“Quite well; or, to be perfectly honest, I like the colonel 
first rate, and the deacon second rate. But we ought not to 
discuss the characters of the people for whom we work — 
ought we?” 

Bert looked at him seriously for a moment, and then broke 
into a laugh. “It is easy to see,” he said, “that your con- 
science was brought up in a country garden, where there was 
plenty of room and soil; but you may as well understand first 
as at last that mine sprung up through cracks in the pavement 
and that consequently it is rather weak and stunted. Yet, 
right or wrong, I will say this ; in our attic we have the liberty 
to say what we please about our employers. Why shouldn’t 
we discuss them behind their backs, when they would as good 
as cuss us to our faces if we should happen to let one of their 
smallest pins drop out of place? When we went into service 
we expected to serve as lightning rods for every thunder storm 
that might occur in the temper of our masters. And, besides, 
‘that careless boy’ is the scapegrace upon whose back are 
placed all the sins of omission and commission that properly 
belong to the other understrappers of the establishment. Our 
attic is our kingdom, where we propose to reign over our 
tongues like emperors. If you were to tell the truth about 
the colonel and the deacon, you would admit that in their 
cases, as well as in some others, appearances are very 
deceiving.” 

“Yes,” Don replied, relaxing in his scruples, “the smooth, 
benevolent face of the deacon made me think that he was good 
enough for a whole steeple, while the rough face and manners 
of the colonel made me think that he was ugly enough for a 
whippingpost.” 


88 


AIR CASTLE DON 


‘‘Exactly; the sugar tag is on the deacon and the acid tag 
on the colonel, when it ought, by good rights, to be just the 
other way. Somebody made a big blunder when those two 
packages of humanity were done up. I never see them with- 
out asking as Tom Hood makes his bachelor ask in The Bach- 
elor’s Dream at the end of every verse : 

What d’ ye think of that, my cat? 

What d’ ye think of that, my dog?” 

“I am afraid,” said Don, “that the remembrance of what 
you have said may sometimes take me unawares and tickle me 
into laughing at them under their very noses.” 

“If the deacon were to see you smiling, he would freeze you 
at a glance, but if the colonel should happen to catch you at it, 
he would take it for granted that your thoughts were worth 
laughing at, and would smile to see you smile. There is more 
fun in him than you would think. I was over there one day 
for books. He took them from the shelf and slammed them 
upon the counter as if he were firing hot shot at the Mexicans. 
I laughed aloud at his seeming ugliness, and then asked his 
pardon for my impudence; and I was in such a hurry to do it, 
too, that the ludicrousness' of it set him to shaking all over. 
Seeing how his mirth contradicted his slamming of the books, 
I giggled like a girl, and to save myself I cut and run as fast 
as I could go.” 

“I notice that he has a habit of slamming books about,” 
said Don; “and he does it sometimes when there isn’t a soul 
standing near him. What do you suppose makes him do it?” 

“In the first place a book is as good as a door for a slam 
when you don’t want to say damn right out ; and in the second 
place, when you catch him at that sort of thing, it is more 
than likely that he has been having some kind of a battle with 
his brother. It is common talk among the book stores that 


AIR CASTLE DON 


89 


he and his brother do not agree over well about anything. 
You, however, should not trouble yourself about their differ-; 
ences, for they do not concern you. Yet allow me to give you 
this bit of advice; when the deacon is around, keep your face 
as tight as the face of a base ball, but when the colonel is near 
you can let it do as it pleases. If both should happen to be 
by, you can look base ball on one side, and Don Donalds on 
the other side. If your conscience should trouble you for 
being doublefaced, you can easily pacify it by pleading 
necessity.” 

“There is an easier way than that,” replied Don seriously, 
“and that is to do my duty to the best of my ability and then 
leave my face to look out for itself. I detest hypocrisy of any 
kind.” 

“Yes; that is just the danger of it. You hate hypocrisy so 
much, and, at the same time have such a tell-tale countenance 
that some of these days your contempt for the deacon will 
blaze into your face and then there will be the deuce to pay, for 
he is suspicious as well as vindictive. So, for your own good, 
it will be best for you to cultivate, or, rather, to sew on a good 
leather base ball face over the threads and yarns of your heart. 
And by the way, I need to take some of my own advice, for I 
do not always practice in the store what I am preaching here 
in the attic. I am naturally inclined to sulk if things do not 
suit me, and although I have the best of employers, I am 
awfully sulky some days. It is then that I get my worst 
knocks. And it is not to be wondered at either, for a sulky 
face is the most impudent and insulting show that one can 
make while on duty.” 

“Suppose we give one night a week to the study of this 
face business?” said Don, quite soberly. “Our teachers used 
to drill us in facial expression whenever we had anything to 


90 


AIR CASTLE DON 


declaim; we can go a little further, and drill ourselves in facial 
repose. Such an exercise as this would help us to guard our- 
selves from having our feelings known to everybody that 
chooses to poke his glances at us when we are supposed to be 
out of humor.” 

“I agree to that, and you shall be the teacher; for while you 
are laughing at me in your sleeves you are keeping as sober 
as if you were a law book bound in sheep. You are better at 
face-keeping than I supposed you could be.” 

“How, then, did you know that I was laughing in my 
sleeves, as you say?” 

“Because the twinkles were leaking out of the corners of 
your eyes; “we’ll have to discipline them, too, if our lessons 
are to do us any good. But it strikes me that our conversa- 
tion has taken a queer turn; we began by criticising our 
employers, and end by criticising ourselves.” 

“That is a good place to end at, but it would be still better 
if ,we were to begin there and keep there most of the time,” 
said Don, and so suggestively withal, that Bert deemed it 
advisable to change the subject. 


CHAPTER IX. 


PAYING FOR A DISAPPOINTMENT. 

One evening Bert entered Don’s attic with an evening 
paper in his hand, and a great project in his head. ‘T have hit 
it at last,” he said mysteriously. 

“A fortune, I hope, for there is nothing too good for you,” 
said Don, sympathetically responding to Bert’s look and 
manner. 

“No, there is no such thing as a fortune for a North Square 
gamin, but it is something that will answer equally well for 
one day af least. You know that there is to be a great rail- 
road celebration in Boston next week, and this paper says that 
all business will be suspended for the day.” 

“And that means a holiday for us,” Don said quickly. 
“What shall we do with it? Speyid the day playing ball at the 
foot of Boston Common? Or shall we play ball during the 
forenoon and fish from the end of the wharf during the rest of 
the day?” 

“No, sir!” said Bert, with a vigorous toss of his head, and 
a touch of scorn in his face; “that sort of thing got played out 
with me long, 1-o-n-g ago. I’m sick of Boston Common and 
its everlasting sameness; and unless you take a rocking chair 
with you, it is too hard work sitting on an oak plank waiting 
for a bite that may never come.” 

“Then we will run about the town after the bands, the 
soldiers, societies and the speakers and big men; that will be 
better still,” said Don. 


(91) 


92 


• AIR CASTLE DON 


“I have had so much of that, that if they were to join Eng- 
land and the United States together by rail, instead of Canada 
and Boston, and were to bring together all the soldiers, drums 
and big men of the two countries, I wouldn’t give a peanut for 
the show. I am going to compensate myself for the greatest 
disappointment of my life by celebrating the day according 
to my own notions, and not according to the notions of the city 
fathers or the city children either.” And Bert spoke so slowly 
and solemnly that Don was unable to decide whether he was 
in earnest or in jest. 

“What was your disappointment?” he asked by way of get- 
ting at his friend’s purpose. 

“I told you not long since, that I was born and brought 
up in Boston — and I suppose I ought to be proud of it to my 
dying day — but I forgot to tell you that when I was one year 
old, my mother took me with her when she made a voyage 
around the world with father while he was captain of the ship 
Fleetwood. Now, if there is anything under the sun that is 
more provoking than any other thing, it is to discover that 
you have travelled all over creation without knowing or enjoy- 
ing the trip. I awoke the other night and thought the whole 
matter out, and I concluded that that trip was the greatest 
disappointment of my life. 

Don began to laugh, and the more he looked at Bert, and 
saw how he kept his face, the more he laughed. 

“What are you going to do about it? How can you com- 
pensate for it?” Don asked, with difficulty restraining another 
outburst of mirth. 

“I am going to hire a sailboat on railroad day and make a 
trip with Nora down the harbor and into the country. I never 
did such a thing before, and I never expect to do it again.” 

“But if you have never managed a boat, you cannot do it 


AIR CASTLE DON 


93 


now; it would be foolhardy to attempt it.” Don was becom- 
ing alarmed. 

“I don’t propose to do the managing; I suppose from what 
I have heard you say about handling boats, that you know all 
about them. I am going to find the boat and you are to do 
the managing. How does that strike you?” 

Don clapped his hands applaudingly, and promptly 
accepted the proposed burden. “But,” said he, “your mother 
ought to be included in the party; an outing will do her good.” 

“I have spoken to her,” Bert replied, “but since father’s 
death she hates the sea so much she doesn’t like even to look 
upon it. She believes that you have been accustomed to boats, 
and notwithstanding her dislike for salt water, is willing that 
Nora should accompany us. Nora is delighted, and I do not 
wonder, for she has been as much caged as I have. Boston 
Common is about all she knows of the outer world. Now you 
can begin to give your orders as soon as you please, for though 
you are green to the city, I am greener still so far as the water 
or the country is concerned.” 

“There is little ordering to be done,” said Don; “all we 
need is to secure a boat as early as possible, because boats will 
probably be in demand on that holiday. We can go to the 
boat basin to-morrow night and make our selection. I may 
add, that it will be well to provide an ample lunch, for as soon 
as your appetite finds that you are on salt water, it will begin 
to make larger demands than usual. To prevent disappoint- 
ment, I must warn you beforehand that everything depends 
upon the weather; we shall not start unless all the signs 
promise good weather for the day. With Nora to care for, we 
shall not even risk discomfort.” 

“I don’t believe that the Lord takes much stock in railroads 
or in railroad celebrations,” Bert began, “and if the rain took 


94 


AIR CASTLE DON 


a notion to come down on that day, I don’t believe that he’d 
prevent it for the railroad’s sake. But if he knew that a girl 
and two boys were praying for good weather so that they 
might get out of prison for a few hours, I think he’d tell the 
clouds to steer clear of Boston for their sakes. At any rate 
all three of us ought to pray hard for a favoring sky. But 
even in case there shouldn’t be a cloud in sight when we start, 
wouldn’t it be prudent to have a pair of umbrellas with us?” 

“Oh, don’t make light of sacred things!” Don exclaimed in 
a shocked way. 

“I am not making light of them; I am only putting in my 
heaviest licks to get them to be on our side,” Bert protested. 
“When one is trying to pay himself for the greatest disappoint- 
ment of his life, joking is out of the question. I shall ask 
mother to pray for us, for she has lots of religious gumption. 
If there should be anything crooked about our prayers, hers 
would be straight enough to make up for them, even though 
she should bring the clouds down to the surface of the water 
on Celebration Day.” 

Don was a good judge of boats, and he selected a trim, 
staunch little craft that carried a jib and mainsail with sheets 
and halliards running aft, where he could handle them without 
moving from the tiller. Bert would be of no service as a 
sailor, but with the ropes under his own hand, Don, in case 
of head wind could tack as he pleased, and, should a squall 
spring up, he could drop his sails in an instant. 

The anxiously anticipated day came like the smile of God; 
a cloudless, balmy day with just wind enough to foster the 
impression that the Infinite Father of all was breathing peace- 
fully and paternally upon a short-sighted and sorrowing world, 
and wooing it to think of that better country in which 
“God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall 


AIR CASTLE DON 


95 


be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall 
there be any more pain, for the former things are passed 
away.” 

Don looked his boat over with an experienced eye, and 
seeing that everything was snug and ship-shape, he hoisted his 
sails and swung out into the stream among the numerous little 
craft that gaily floated around him, with a confidence and skill 
that commanded Bert’s unbounded admiration and respect. 
Nora’s happiness was so great that, finding no words with 
which to express her pleasure, she sat as still as a brooding 
bird. 

Only once did Bert become alarmed. Don was running 
the boat close into the wind. Dead ahead of him there was a 
crowded excursion steamer with scores of flags floating in the 
bright sun. 

‘‘She’ll run us down,” Bert shrieked at the top of his voice. 

“Not a bit of it,” said Don calmly; “I have the weather 
gage and she will recognize that I have the right of way.” 

“But a big craft like that won’t mind such a shell of a thing 
as we are in. For Heaven’s sake, Don, get out of her way!” 

But Don, unmoved, kept his course, and when the steamer 
began to draw near she swung from her straight wake making 
a graceful curve, which left the boat a safe distance to wind- 
ward. The man at the wheel knew that the little craft was 
sovereign in her rights, and he changed his direction as a 
matter of course, while the gaily dressed passengers waved 
their handkerchiefs and cheered at the young voyagers in the 
boat. 

“Well, I declare!” Bert exclaimed, wiping the perspiration 
from his face, “if that’s the way the weather gage works, why 
don’t they land some of it and apply it to the big things that 
are always running over the small things?” 


96 


AIR CASTLE DON 


‘‘There is lots of it on shore already,” said Don, in a matter 
of fact way. “For instance, if you were pulling a hand-cart 
in the street and were on the right of it, the most aristocratic 
carriage that goes would have to give you the right of way; 
and it is the same in a hundred other cases. But for this 
respect for the undoubted rights of others the world would be 
a good deal worse than it is.” 

“I’ll stick up for the weather gage all the rest of my days,” 
said Bert. “But suppose that the steamer had not seen us?” 
he suddenly asked, after a pause. 

“That is not a supposable case,” Don replied; “she had her 
lookout at the fore, and it was his duty to see everything ahead 
of him; besides, the pilot himself steered with his eyes open. 
If I had steered any closer to the wind, I should have lost my 
headway altogether. The steamer knew that so far as we were 
concerned it was our duty to keep our course, and that is why 
she changed hers.” 

“Yet I was almost frightened to death,” Bert said sheep- 
ishly. Addressing himself to his sister, he added: “Weren’t 
you scared?” 

“No; of course I wasn’t,” she replied truthfully; “and I 
wondered why you made such a fuss.” 

“That was because you didn’t know enough to be scared, 
and that is the way it generally is with you females.” 

“Well, I would rather be ignorant than frightened. I am 
enjoying this sail altogether too much to spoil it by borrowing 
trouble. When Don begins to show the white feather, I will 
show mine to keep him company.” 

“Well, I think you are about right after all, little Miss 
Coolhead.” 

Then turning to Don, Bert said: “The outdoors you have 
lived in is a good deal wider than the indoors which has been 


AIR CASTLE DON 


97 


the prison-house of the most of my life, and you show it in 
almost everything you do or say. Boston may be the hub of 
the universe, as Oliver Wendell Holmes says, but I am 
inclined to think that she is only a fly on the real hub. Two 
things are becoming very plain to me ; one is, that I have been 
raised in Boston, and the other is, that you have been raised 
in the universe. During the first of our acquaintance, I 
thought you very verdant, but I will never again call you 
green; never!” 

Don smiled contentedly, but as the wind was freshening 
and the boat was careening to the breeze, he confined his 
energies and watchfulness to the management of the little craft. 

As they sailed further and further away from the city, and 
passed the islands in the outer harbor, Bert suddenly realized 
that a vast and pregnant silence was taking the place of the 
rasping and petty tumult of the city. Drawing a long breath 
of satisfaction he reverently said: ‘Tf this stillness keeps on 
growing at this rate it will soon be still enough to hear God.” 

Don recalled the hours he had spent in the still glades of 
the wilderness, and responding to Bert’s feelings, he replied: 
“Perhaps you are hearing Him already?” 

Just then a heavy battery of guns fired a salute in honor of 
the Governor-General of Canada, and Bert was so annoyed by 
the reverberations that he said reflectively: “We shall not 
hear God till we get beyond the sound of those guns.” 

In preparation for the trip Don had studied a map of the 
surroundings of Boston. Having gone as far as he thought 
it was safe, he ran the boat into a little sandy bay and tied up 
to a small wharf. Thence they wandered over the white beach 
picking up shells and other marine curiosities. Then they 
passed into a lane that led to the upland farms, gathering 
many-hued pebbles as they went. Seeing a wide-spreading 


AIR CASTLE DON 


apple-tree within a fence close by a farm house, they asked 
permission of the farmer to eat their dinner in the shade. 

“Of course,” said the farmer, cordially, “that apple tree is 
just longing for someone to get under its shade. And speak- 
ing to a rosy-faced girl of about twelve, he added, smilingly: 
“Here, Doxy, get a half gallon of milk for these youngsters.” 

While the three were enjoying the rich fresh milk under 
the tree, Nora said: “We never get such milk as this in the 
city.” 

“No,” Bert replied, “it gets so tired on the way to the city 
that by the time it comes to the table it is too weak for any- 
thing.” 

But for his ingrain courtesy Don would have assented 
heartily to the remark, for all the milk he had seen since his 
arrival among North Square boarding houses, so nearly 
resembled the color of the sky, that fearing it was treated to 
doses of washing bluing, he abstained from it altogether. 

“Why, you drink this milk, but you don’t take any at 
home,” said Nora innocently. 

“I am partial to cows,” Don replied evasively, “and as this 
milk must be quite near to them, I drink it for their sakes.” 

Nora looked at him so sharply, and blushed so vividly, that 
he repented at once, and immediately proposed that they 
should go into the woods after dinner. 

When they asked the farmer’s permission to go into the 
wood-lot and gather ferns, he said: “Gather anything you 
please; take a cart load of ferns if you can find them. You 
are so polite and civil I am glad to see you enjoy yourselves.” 

When they returned from the lot he invited them into the 
house, where the inmates brought them cool well water to 
cleanse the soil from their hands, and Doxy gave them large 
bunches of late flowers to take with them on their return. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


99 


The wind being fair and strong the boat sped back to the 
city like a bird on wing, and Bert after a prolonged silence 
said : “This is the only whole day I have spent out of Boston 
since I was two years old. You may talk about your Webster 
day as the greatest day of your life, but this has been my 
greatest day, and very much of it I owe to your knowledge 
of the water and the country. Have you enjoyed it?” 

“Yes,” Don replied, “it has been like being home again; 
and I have enjoyed it doubly because you and Nora were so 
happy.” 

When the spoils of the day were arrayed upon the table 
before the little mother, accompanied by the voluble com- 
ments of her children the cloud of sadness and anxiety which 
was almost habitual with her, disappeared entirely, so that for 
the time being she looked as sunny as the children themselves. 

“I didn\ see a single keep-your-hands-off, nor a single 
keep-off-the-grass sign while we were ashore,” said Nora; 
“and we have been so near Heaven all day long that we almost 
tumbled in.” 


CHAPTER X. 


OLD FAILINGS REVIVED. 

The wholesome drudgery of the store, and the not 
unhealthy limitations of the attic had a tendency to keep Don 
quite near the earth. He was compelled to sew on his own 
buttons, mend his socks, repair his garments and contrive to 
make his dollar margin cover the unexpected incidentals that 
continually intruded themselves upon his calculations. He 
was not only learning the value of small things, but the sacred- 
ness of common obligations, as well. He paid his indebted- 
ness to Bert, and was no less scrupulous in meeting his weekly 
obligations to Mrs. Williams, for he knew that she, too, was 
obliged to manage closely in order to make her income meet 
her necessary expenditures. 

Yet, practical and commonplace as were his surroundings, 
his imagination refused to be hobbled, and his dreaming 
machine was seldom out of repair. Several circumstances 
combined to revive his old failing to such an extent as to 
make it difficult for him to keep in thorough touch with every- 
day life. 

Colonel Wickworth was a great admirer of General 
Winfield Scott. Well he might be, for it was under his com- 
mand that he took part in the battles of Cerro Gordo, Con- 
treras, Cherubusco, Chapultepec and Mexico; and he was with 
the giant general when he captured Santa Anna, the wooden- 
legged chief of the Mexican forces, and president of the Mexi- 
can Republic. 


(ico) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


101 


The colonel was fond of recounting adventures, and when 
business was slack he was not above entertaining the clerks 
with stories of his experiences during the Mexican campaign. 
These stories, coming as they did from a living hero, so stim- 
ulated Don that when he returned to his attic he repeated them 
to Bert, and dreamed of them so vividly that, not infrequently, 
he engaged in mortal conflicts with his bedclothes. 

One evening he entered Bert’s room with far more conse- 
quence than he had ever assumed as Grand Keyman of The 
Lady of the Lake Club, and was no sooner seated than he said 
with evident exultation: “A fine carriage with a liveried 
coachman drove up to our curb this afternoon and landed two 
men for our store. When I opened the door for them, one of 
them, a magnificent giant of a fellow, asked for Colonel Wick- 
worth. When I escorted them to the counting room they 
made a sensation. The big man was General Winfield Scott, 
and the other was General Caleb Cushing. You are always 
boasting of the big writers who go to your store; now what 
do you say to Scott and Cushing for big fish?” 

“Say!” was the unabashed answer; “I say that the pen is 
mightier than the sword. And when the fame of your gener- 
als goes with the glitter of their swords and fades with the 
gilding of their shoulder straps, the names of our authors will 
still be shining like the stars. But I must congratulate you on 
having seen two great men; it is something to remember and 
to be proud of.” 

“The idea of being under the same roof with them nearly 
lifted me from my feet. I don’t believe that you are half the 
hero worshipper that I am. I’ll admit that your pen-men are 
greater than my warriors, but the sight of them doesn’t stir 
the blood like the sight of such a man as General Scott, whose 
deeds have been told to you by one who was a witness of 
them.” 


102 


AIR CASTLE DON 


^‘Well, I will frankly admit, that I should like to have been 
in your store when those two men were there, for I always 
feel as if great men are much greater than anything that can 
be written about them. I am glad for the colonel’s sake, that 
they called upon him. Did they stay long?” 

“No; they soon took the colonel with them, and all three 
went away looking very much pleased. It must be a great 
thing for old comrades in arms to get together again. It 
means another treat for us at the store, for the colonel will be 
sure to have some new incidents to tell the first chance he 
can get.” 

Bert was obtaining a new insight into Don’s character, and 
respecting his hero worship tendencies, and hoping to afford 
him a new pleasure, he said: “Don, suppose that we go to 
Cambridge next Sunday and take a look at Longfellow’s 
house? Besides being the home of our greatest poet, you 
know it was Washington’s Headquarters during the revolu- 
tionary war.” 

“That would be a delightful thing to do if it were right,” 
Don replied. 

“Right!” exclaimed Bert, with a start, he not having yet 
learned the depth of his chum’s old fashioned Sunday-keeping 
notions. “You don’t mean to intimate that while it is right 
for us to go up to the Common on Sunday afternoon, it would 
be wrong for us to go to Cambridge because it is a little more 
distant than the Common? We have no other day for going, 
and seeing that we propose to make it a patriotic pilgrimage, 
I do not believe that God will split our heads for going. 
Going will be as good as a sermon for you.” 

After some hesitation and no little conflict between his 
desires and his convictions, Don consented to the proposal. 
They reached Cambridge just as the morning congregations 


AIR CASTLE DON 


103 


came out of the churches. The streets were filled with people, 
the sight of whom revived Don’s scruples with such force that 
he said to his companion : ‘T can’t stand this ! Let’s take an 
alley and get out of the crowd. The dust on our shoes and 
trousers will make them think that we are a pair of regular 
Sabbath-breakers.” 

'‘You poor, innocent, white-breasted bird! Hasn’t your 
conscience grown its skin yet?” Bert exclaimed, with some 
annoyance. “We have no more reason to be ashamed of our- 
selves than the people have for returning from the churches. 
There is small danger of you falling into the bottomless pit 
until you become a good deal wickeder than you are now. 
Come along.” And he pushed ahead so aggressively that 
there was no alternative but for Don to follow. 

Don’s uncomfortable feelings were dissipated when he 
reached the residence of the poet, an old, wooden-roomy house, 
destitute of all architectural pretension, yet so grandly shaded 
by elms and so beautifully fringed with shrubbery it made an 
ideal poet’s nest. While the boy-pilgrims stood outside of the 
grounds reverently regarding the place made sacred by .so 
many noble associations, the poet came down one of the walks 
bareheaded, and, recognizing them, shook hands with them 
and cordially invited them to roam over the place at their will. 

Longfellow was below medium height, yet he was so broad 
shouldered that he was commanding in his physical appear- 
ance. He had a strikingly beautiful face, enlivened by deep 
dark eyes which glimmered beneath his high brow and pro- 
fusion of dark hair like lights from a great depth. 

Bert explained their mission and offered excuses for taking 
Sunday to execute it. “What other day could you take?” said 
the poet in his low melodious tones, and showing his sympathy 
with their desires. “Shop boys like you have scant time for 


104 


AIR CASTLE DON 


pilgrimages on week days. You are to be commended for 
coming to see the house made celebrated by the presence of 
Washington. Come with me and I will show you where he 
planned the campaigns that led to the success of the revolution 
and gave birth to a new nation.” 

Although they protested against intruding upon his privacy 
he led them into the house and in the most unconstrained way 
showed them Washington’s room, and the relics connected 
with his stay under the roof. Not content with showing them 
over the house and more particularly through his study, he 
pressed them to remain for luncheon. But seeing that they 
were embarrassed, and learning that they had their lunch with 
them and that they had set their hearts upon eating it beneath 
the shade of the Washington Elm, he put on his hat and 
showed them over the entire grounds. 

His Evangeline was then fresh in the mind of the public. 
Bert had a much prized copy of the poem which had been 
presented to him by the poet himself not long before the time 
of their visit. The scene of the story being laid in Nova Scotia, 
Don had read it with great avidity, a fact which Bert made 
known to the poet with no little pride. 

Smiling with unaffected interest, Longfellow said: “Then 
I have been entertaining an angel unawares — two of them in 
fact. Perhaps I can learn something more about the wonder- 
ful peninsula which has already engrossed so much of my 
attention. There at the foot of that elm is a seat where I have 
thought out not a few of my poems; let u§ sit there while we 
talk of Nova Scotia.” 

He was acquainted with the personal history of Constance 
La Tour, and her reckless and eccentric husband, and soon dis- 
covered that Don knew much of the locality where they spent 
a portion of their lives. With the eagerness of a child listen- 




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AIR CASTLE DON 


105 


ing to a fairy story, he listened to the description Don gave of 
Port La Tour and the surrounding scenery. 

“And so you have been a resident of Shelburne County?” 
he said toward the close, “and you have doubtless seen Shel- 
burne, the famous old shire town which has such a strangely 
pathetic origin and history, The Ten Thousand Tory 
Refugees who fled from the young United States and carried 
with them a thousand slaves and expended millions of money 
with the intention of founding the metropolis of the new 
empire, were a sadly disappointed people when, at the end of 
two years they abandoned their little city to desolation, and, 
impoverished and wretched, returned to their native land. 
Some day some author will acquire fame by doing justice to a 
story which, in many respects is more touching and eventful 
than the story of Evangeline. Tell me how Shelburne looked 
when you were last there?” 

By asking many leading questions, he elicited from Don an 
account of the long nine-mile landlocked harbor, and of the 
wild country adjacent to it. And he was almost incredulous 
when told that only a few of the old brick buildings remained, 
and that even those were unoccupied and rapidly going to 
decay. He was scarcely prepared to believe that such a 
romantic beginning could end in such a bleak reality. 

While on the way back to Boston, Don said with consider- 
able feeling: “Well, I shall never forget the pilgrimage to 
Longfellow's house; I could not have been better pleased if I had 
been to Abbotsford and had seen Sir Walter Scott himself.” 

Bert was gratified to hear him speak with so much satis- 
faction, but unable to restrain his native impishness, said: 
“To make up for our wickedness, we shall have to go to 
Father Taylor’s this evening and get him to shrive our souls; 
that is, if your conscience still troubles you.” 


106 


AIR CASTLE DON 


“We will go to the Mariners’ Bethel to hear Father Taylor, 
but Cambridge has made no wounds of conscience that will 
need doctoring by him. It would be just like him to pat us 
on the back and call us good boys for going to see the poet. 
Although he is as eccentric as old Peter Piper, he is as gentle 
and as sensible as Longfellow himself.” 

Not long after the Cambridge pilgrimage, Don had another 
experience which tended to exalt him to the upper regions. 
The arrival of the Swedish singer, Jenny Lind, who was then 
at the height of her popularity, produced scenes of enthusiasm 
in the country that have been rarely equalled. In the course 
of her professional tour she visited Boston. She reached the 
city in a driving rain storm, notwithstanding which, her innu- 
merable admirers took the horses from her coach and drew her 
from the depot to her hotel. From the Wickworth store Don 
saw the crowd fill the street from curb to curb and as far up 
and down its length as the eye could see. The colonel, unable 
to restrain his enthusiasm, stepped to the door and shouted 
with the rest till he was hoarse, and his example encouraged 
Don to join in the tumult to the full measure of his noise- 
making power. 

As in New York, so in Boston, the first choice of tickets 
rose to upwards of five hundred dollars for a single ticket. 
This was not, however, so much a mark of appreciation as it 
was a desire for notoriety on the part of the purchaser, who 
belonged to that class of advertisers who would post their bills 
on the throne of the Almighty if they could get near enough 
to do it. Mid all the excitement P. T. Barnum, the Beelzebub 
of advertisers, under whose auspices Miss Lind came to this 
country, smiled serenely, and coolly measured the worth of 
the prevailing epidemic by the number of dollars it added to 
his already large fortune. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


107 


When Bert reached the attic on the evening of the concert, 
he was as insane as everybody else and he proposed that Don 
and he should join the multitude of people that would be sure 
to gather around Fitchburg Hall, where the concert was to be 
given. 

‘‘If we cannot af¥ord to pay five hundred dollars for a ticket 
we may be able to steal a few notes of her singing,” said he, 
“if we can get near enough to the hall to catch what comes 
through the windows.” 

When they reached the hall the streets were packed with a 
struggling mass of humanity, but notwithstanding this the 
boys managed at no small risk of their limbs to get within a 
few steps of the great railway hall. Their wrath waxed hot 
when they found that Barnum, in order to prevent Jenny Lind 
from being heard in the streets, had ordered that every window 
in the building should be kept closed. Many in the crowd 
shared in their indignation and four young men standing near 
Don and Bert picked missiles from the street and showered 
them through the windows. The rash act would have pro- 
duced a serious panic within the building had not Jenny Lind, 
with great presence of mind, counteracted the terror by begin- 
ning one of her most captivating songs. But the mischief 
makers had accomplished their aim, for through the broken 
windows her singing came clear and strong to the infinite 
delight of the outsiders, who applauded and encored her with 
as much enthusiasm as those within the hall. 

Bert recounted the incident with great satisfaction to his 
mother. “When,” said he, “Barnum becomes so selfish and 
mean that he is ready to smother an audience in foul air for 
the sake of preventing the music from leaking out of the build- 
ing, it is time for Boston people to show what sort of stuff 
they are made of. The fellows who broke those windows 


108 


AIR CASTLE DON 


must have been descendents of those who threw the tea into 
the harbor. But you ought to have heard her sing! No one 
can sing like that unless she has a good deal of the angel in 
her.” 

Father Taylor had been signally kind to Swedish sailors, 
and Jenny Lind had become aware of the fact. She showed 
her gratitude for his attention to her countrymen by sending 
a liberal contribution for his work, and by attending his ser- 
vice the Sunday morning following the concert. The Mar- 
iners’ Bethel was but a few steps from the widow’s dwelling, 
and Don, in company with the family, was present. It having 
become known before the close of the service that Jenny Lind 
was among the worshippers, several Swedes, when the congre- 
gation was dismissed, pressed forward to pay their respects 
to their distinguished countrywoman. The example became 
contagious, and among the first to shake hands with her were 
Don and Bert, who were smilingly received, and graciously 
commended for being in the House of God. 

Although Jenny Lind would not be called a beautiful 
woman, Bert, on returning to the house, had much to say 
about her golden hair and deep blue eyes, her pretty lips and 
pearly teeth, her fresh complexion and graceful bearing. Don 
was chiefly impressed by her amiability, and with an ardor that 
equalled Bert’s, he declared that she looked like an angel who 
was not more than twenty-four hours from Heaven. 

Such praises as these were altogether too strong for Nora’s 
patience, and pouting her lips, she said with a touch of femin- 
ine jealousy: “Then why does she let Barnum make such an 
elephant of her?” 

With such a little Miss Daniel as this come to judgment 
there was nothing more to be said in her presence, and the 
boys fled to their attic, where they could worship their new 
divinity to their hearts’ content. 


CHAPTER XL 


DEEP WATER SOUNDINGS. 

Colonel Wickworth was a bachelor. That a man of means, 
old enough to know his mind, and one who had worn shoulder 
straps upon real battlefields, should be single, was one of the 
things that Don could not satisfactorily fathom. True, the 
colonel was as homely as a ram’s horn, but Don knew that 
that of itself was no bar to matrimony, for he had known 
instances where the homeliest of men had taken their pick 
from the handsomest of women. As for himself, he loved the 
colonel, not for his looks, but for his qualities, and he saw no 
reason why some of the surplus female population of Boston 
should not exercise the same discrimination. 

He knew that the colonel, so far from being in favor of the 
abolition of the gentle sex, had in his hearing expressed his 
profound respect and admiration for all womankind, including 
Eve, notwithstanding she had been so long dead. He was, 
indeed, a firm believer in matrimony, and believed with Solo- 
mon that he who findeth a wife, finds a good thing. Don had 
also heard the colonel say that families were good ‘‘things,” 
and he thought that, notwithstanding boys and girls were so 
common, they were the most wonderful “things” under the 
sun. 

Boys and girls who knew the colonel knew that he was a 
perfect love of a man. The colonel’s young relatives not infre- 
quently dropped into the store just for the sake of getting a 

(109) 


110 


AIR CASTLE DON 


look at him; and one mite of a niece, after receiving a box of 
bon-bons from the ex-soldier, testified in confidence to Don 
that her dear old uncle was as good as anybody that ever went 
to Heaven, or came from it, either, for that matter. 

Then, why was he single? Ah, Don, you would have saved 
yourself needless worry if you had said: “He remains single 
because he doesn’t want to become double.” That would have 
been the simplest solution. 

Colonel Wickworth had become much attached to Don, 
and he showed his liking by giving him tickets to concerts, 
lectures, first class theatrical entertainments, and — circuses, 
also. Liking Bert almost as well as he did Don, it invariably 
happened that, although he kept himself single, he made his 
tickets double so that the juvenile Damon might have the com- 
pany of his juvenile Pythias. The colonel’s wits were as 
bright as his sword, and he knew that these two birds of a 
feather would be happiest together. 

The colonel was an intimate friend and a faithful parish- 
ioner of Theodore Parker, at that time the most celebrated 
preacher in Boston, or New England. It must, however, be 
confessed that one reason why the colonel stuck to this 
preacher was because the preacher obstinately stuck to himself. 
That is to say, he would not let other people do his thinking 
for him, nor cut his thread to suit their stitches instead of his 
own, and consequently he was the best abused man of his day. 

Desiring that Don should sharpen his wits by rubbing 
them on Parker’s whetstone, one Saturday afternoon he said 
to him: “If you and Bert will come to my church to-morrow 
morning, you shall sit with me, and after service I will intro- 
duce you to the greatest man in the United States.” 

It so happened that the fame of this preacher had reached 
to Barrington itself, notwithstanding it was so far from the 


AIR CASTLE DON 


111 


maddening haunts of men — so remote from Boston, that nest 
of notions, and “hub of the universe.” Even Peter Piper had 
heard so much about the man and his heresies that the barest 
mention of his name stirred all his pickled peppers to their 
profoundest depths. 

Don’s father not only preached in favor of what he believed, 
but also against what he didn’t believe, and with the oddest 
effect sometimes. For instance: He once denounced card 
playing with so much graphic detail that Don and ‘one of his 
companions straightway bought a pack of cards and hiding 
themselves in a hay mow tried to solve the mystery of the 
iniquity hidden in the game. But so many compunctions 
interfered with their use of the forbidden fruit that, becoming 
afraid of the pasteboards they concealed them in the long grass 
growing at the foot of a headstone in the village graveyard. 
Here the sexton found them while digging a grave near by, 
and his horror was intensified by the knowledge of the fact that 
the man whose remains crumbled beneath the sod, was, during 
his mortal life, the latter part of it at least, a confirmed card- 
player. The sexton burned the pack to ashes and scattered 
the ashes to the wind. Don’s father was informed of the find- 
ing, and as he was ignorant of the offenders, he aimed another 
columbiad of a sermon against the particular devils that went 
about in pasteboard suits and disguises. 

The denunciation of Theodre Parker from the village pul- 
pits made Don familiar with his name and his particular fame, 
and begot a strong desire to hear and see him. He scarcely 
knew what a heretic was, yet, having read Fox’s Book of 
Martyrs when he was lying sick of the scarlet fever, he had the 
impression that heretics made good kindling wood for those 
who kept themselves warm by making it hot for others. 

When, therefore, the colonel invited him to hear Parker, 


112 


AIR CASTLE DON 


he was eager to improve his opportunity. The distance 
between him and his father’s pulpit was equivalent to the con- 
cealment afforded by a barn and a mow of hay. He wanted 
to drop his lead into the sea of Parkerism for the sake of 
finding where the bottom was. 

The Maeonion congregation astonished him; it was 
immense, and was composed chiefly of young men. Parker 
astonished him also. He almost expected to see horns sur- 
mounting his high brow and peeping above his blue eyes from 
among the blonde hair that thickly covered his stately head. 
Although the speaker’s voice was so richly melodious, and his 
words so glowingly eloquent and pervasively sympathetic, Don 
vigilantly watched for something wicked. He was fain to 
confess, however, that this devil, at least, had been painted 
blacker than he really was. His prayers were not alien to the 
Lord’s Prayer, nor his sentiments, to the Sermon on the 
Mount. Yet notwithstanding the flash of glittering wings 
which took the place of diabolical horns, Don grew uneasy to 
think that he was getting in such an awful place as the Maeon- 
ion and listening to such an awful man as Parker was reputed 
to be. 

Being as good as his word the colonel introduced the two 
boys to his pastor and friend at the close of the service. And 
to the utter confusion of all of Don’s preconceived notions and 
opinions of the man, Theodore Parker insistently invited the 
boys to visit his home for the purpose of enjoying a sight of 
his great library of rare works, and still more valuable collec- 
tion of curios and famous works of art. That invitation the 
boys subsequently accepted to their great satisfaction and 
profit. 

An immediate reckoning, however, followed upon their 
morning’s misdemeanor. When they reached home, Nora, 


AIR CASTLE DON 


113 


who had almost tearfully protested against the sin of going to 
hear such a heretic, met them with withering reproaches 
which, during their absence she had carefully and piously 
framed in exact scriptural phraseology for greater effect. 
Being an orthodox little soul, she believed that no one could 
come in contact with pitch- without being defiled. She felt 
convinced that the boys had been actually bathing in a sea of 
pitch and that, therefore, to use the words used concerning 
Noah’s Ark, they were “pitched both within and without.” 

Instead of being cast down by her onslaught, the boys 
began to praise the preaching of the man against whose influ- 
ence she had warned them with so much zeal. Not content 
with this, they declared that they would take her with them to 
the same place on the following Sunday and allow her to judge 
of the preaching for herself. She was so visibly agitated by 
this hardness of heart, which served to confirm her worst 
apprehensions, that Bert caught her in his arms and vainly 
attempted to kiss away her tears and her fears. 

The distress of the little saint was so unequivocally mani- 
fested that it aroused Don’s conscience as effectually as it was 
aroused on the occasion of his first and — last game of cards. 
He could not, however, hide his transgression as easily as he 
hid the cards, and therefore he did the next best thing, he hid 
himself in his attic, where Bert soon joined him, glad to escape 
from Nora’s accusing eyes and tongue. 

“That sister of mine is a nuisance!” said Bert, although 
there was not enough annoyance revealed in his manner to 
give the proper emphasis to his words. “She would make a 
regular John the Baptist of me before I could say Jack Robin- 
son, if I would let her. I don’t believe it’s right for a mere 
gallon of a girl to be carting around a barrelfull of goodness. 
She’s got it into her head that Parker is a Philistine of the 


114 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Philistines — a regular giant of pulpit wickedness. And, 
though her heart is naturally as tender as a ripe peach, I 
believe she’d pray Parker into his grave before to-morrow 
night if she could.” 

'‘She is a brick, or rather what Saint Paul would call a 
‘lively stone’,” said Don, sharply, in her defense; “and if I 
were a man, and she were a woman, and I knew how to make 
love, I would ask her to marry me before I went to sleep.” 

“Marry you!” exclaimed Bert, at the same time laughing 
at the blush that mantled Don’s cheek at the mere mention of 
love. “Marry you! A precious team you would make; you, 
with your scruples of conscience, and she, with her piles of 
bigotry.” 

A tap at the door interrupting further comment, Bert 
admitted Nora, remarking pertinently: “Mention the angels 
and you will hear the rustling of their wings.” 

“That doesn’t apply to me,” she replied penitently, yet not 
daring to say the other half of the proverb lest the mentioning 
involved should provoke some fresh freak of mischief. 

She had Saturday’s paper with her, and from it read a 
notice of a public meeting to be held in Faneuil Hall on Mon- 
day evening. Boston was in a ferment over city corruptions 
which were aided and indirectly abetted by the city fathers. 
The notice called for the friends of municipal righteousness to 
assemble in force for the voicing of their indignation. This 
little wisp of a woman — meaning Nora — had a penchant for 
righteous indignation of any kind, and glad to find something 
that would serve as a compromise between her and the boys, 
she smilingly said: “I will forgive you for going to the Mae- 
onion this morning if you will go to Faneuil Hall to-morrow 
night. I know that you will go, for the paper says that Alder- 


AIR CASTLE DON 115 

man Lammels — the man you hate so much — declares that he 
will be on hand with a crowd to break up the meeting/’ 

Bert clapped his hands, saying: “Our forgiveness is 
already assured, for Don and I made up our minds last night 
that we would go to that meeting to see the fun.” 

“The fun!” she exclaimed indignantly; “if that is all you 
go for you would better stay at home.” 

“We are going for righteousness sake,” said Don, more 
diplomatically. 

“That sounds better. You care more for the right than 
you do for the fun, while Bert is just the other way,” she said, 
at the same time beaming her approval upon Don so warmly 
that he became roundly ashamed because his motives did not 
reach to the height of his words. 

Don had long desired to see the inside of the Cradle of 
Liberty, as Faneuil Hall is called, because of its connection 
with the exciting events of the nation’s earliest history, and 
because in it were first heard so many of the inspiring senti- 
ments which subsequently became embodied in the nation’s 
destiny. He now had an opportunity of seeing the hall when 
it was filled with a characteristic Boston public meeting. The 
fact that Colonel Wickworth was already named as the chair- 
man of the meeting increased the boys’ interest in the proposed 
gathering. With an old soldier in the chair there would be 
little danger to be apprehended from rowdies on the floor. 

When Peter Faneuil gave the hall that bears his name to 
Boston, it was intended that the lower part should be used as 
a market for meats for the body, and the upper for meats for 
the mind. The two objects have never been lost sight of, and 
consequently the building, though large, is a two-storied piece 
of architecture so severely square and plain that nobody would 
ever think of going into ecstasies over it. 


116 


AIR CASTLE DON 


The interior is as plain as the exterior, with galleries 
extending around three sides, and supported by pillars that are 
more substantial than beautiful. The main floor provides only 
for standing room, although ascending tiers at the sides enable 
occupants to look over one anothers’ heads. 

On entering the hall, which was then about two-thirds full, 
Don immediately became interested in the numerous old por- 
traits hanging upon the wall in the rear of the platform. They 
said as plainly as paint and oil could make them say it: 
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” 

When the colonel mounted the platform he saw the boys 
standing at the foot, and immediately ordered them to seats 
back of his chair, where they would be safe from the crush of 
the crowd which by this time had packed the hall to over- 
flowing. 

When Marshal Tukey, the speaker and hero of the evening, 
arose to speak, the tumult that greeted him indicated strongly 
and violently opposing forces. 

The speaker was a “character.” Once a great gambler and 
a notoriously fast man, he had turned squarely from his evil 
ways and had so commended himself to the confidence of the 
public that he became the city marshal. Having been a great 
rogue himself, he was well versed in the art of catching rogues, 
as the police authorities of all the great cities well knew. But 
his zeal for rogue-catching outran the support of the city 
fathers who, while they admitted that law was designed for the 
suppression of crime, were not willing to assume the respon- 
sibility of executing it. Hence Tukey was discharged, and 
consequently righteous Boston — including many sinners — 
was up in arms, and Tukey Avas there in Faneuil Hall to 
inflame their righteousness to greater intensity by making hot 
revelations of official corruptions. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


117 


Tall and erect, thin and lithe, with the eye of an eagle and 
the nose of a Roman, and a smooth face and a heavy dark 
poll; a notable figure and a portentous prophet, he stood the 
observed of all observers. At the first his velvety tones and 
suave bearing acted soothingly upon the conflicting elements 
in the assembly. But presently, when his charges rose to the 
character of an indictment, his voice rang with the resonance 
of a trumpet. 

Lammels was there, according to his threat, and several 
other aldermen were with him backed up by the worst element 
that could be gathered from the quagmires of the population. 
They had nothing to fear from the police because, according 
to a preconcerted plan, they were instructed to keep at a dis- 
tance. Aware of the whole conspiracy, the colonel passed the 
word for the members of his old regiment, of whom there were 
not a few in the city, to be on hand for an emergency. The 
enemies of the meeting were massed in the rear of the hall; 
the veterans and the speaker’s friends gathered in a compact 
mass around the platform and in the center of the hall. 

At a moment when Tukey was describing the city govern- 
ment as the great red dragon with seven heads, ten horns and 
seven crowns, and was aggravating the comparison by speak- 
ing of the city as being in the possession of seven devils, mean- 
ing Lammels and six of his confederates, trouble came like 
a tornado. 

Lammels shouted: ^‘Down with Tukey! Clean out the 
platform!” 

The colonel, now in his element, stepped forward and 
thundered: ‘‘Charge, boys! Down with the enemies of free 
speech !” 

Electrified by the colonel’s call, Don and Bert plunged 
from the platform to the floor by flying leaps, and the next 


118 


AIR CASTLE DON 


instant were battling by the side of the veterans in the very 
thickest of the fray. Getting near to Lammels, Don in front 
and Bert in the rear, one would punch him in his fat abdomen, 
while the other improved the opportunity to knock his hat over 
his eyes ; the wedge of veterans the while steadily driving him 
and his forces toward the door with an impetus that would 
have pushed the wall out if it had struck it fairly. 

The hall was now clear, and the speaking went on without 
further disturbance, although during the riot serious blows 
had been given and taken. 

When the boys reached home they looked as though they 
had just been dropped from the talons of a western whirlwind. 

“Here are your for-righteousness-sake champions,” said 
Bert, dolefully rubbing his bruised shins and exhibiting the 
rents made in his and Don’s garments during the riot. 

“Good gracious, boys! What has happened to you?” 
exclaimed Nora, in alarm. “Did you fall into the hands of 
an Ann street mob on the way home?” 

“No, not on the way home, but while we were in your con- 
founded Faneuil Hall meeting!” Bert replied. 

“We were rocked in The Cradle of Liberty, according to 
our contract with you,” said Don. “But I can assure you that 
we didn’t go to sleep while being rocked. If this is a speci- 
men of the meetings you would send us to by way of squaring 
for going to hear Theodore Parker, I’ll hear no more Parkers 
while the world stands.” 

“But it was just glorious!” Bert interrupted, reviving at 
the recollection of their victory. “We routed Lammels and 
his mob, horse, foot and dragoons, and then went to the plat- 
form and listened to Tukey to the finish.” 

When Don reached the store the next morning wearing 
a long scratch on the right side of his forehead, the colonel 


AIR CASTLE LON '119 

grimly asked: “Well, my boy, how do you like our Boston 
School of Oratory?” 

“The oratory is all right, but isn’t the price of tuition rather 
high?” was the reply. “Do you always have a fight when you 
hold meetings in Faneuil Hall?” 

“Not always; but we like to make a good job of it when 
liberty of speech is involved, just as we did last night. That 
was your first battle for freedom, and you deserve a shoulder 
strap — ^both you and Bert — for the way you lammed Lam- 
mels.” And the colonel turned away chuckling deeply. 


CHAPTER XII. 


ADRIFT AGAIN. 

Miss Arabella Belinda Agincourt, whom Don so madly 
worshipped for a week, did not mean to be either a Medusa or 
a Pandora. That is to say, she did not mean to adopt the 
methods of these fabled goddesses of mythology, such as wear- 
ing serpents on her head or gossipping about with a box of 
evils in her hand. Nevertheless she proved a viper to Don’s 
interests and a box of plagues to his reputation. 

She was a near relative of the Wickworths, and occasion- 
ally made a visit — a friendly call to their counting room. She 
seldom took much notice of Don, save to talk about him 
behind his back to both the deacon and the colonel. There 
was nothing designedly malicious about her tittle-tattle, 
although she was always more or less contemptuous in her 
allusions to him. Her invidious remarks were based entirely 
upon the fact that he had descended from the glories of the 
Covert boarding house and had condescended to accept shelter 
under the widow’s roof. To every depth there is a lower deep. 
There were not a few w’hose noses grew tip-tilted at the men- 
tion of the Covert domicile, and it was doubtless by way of 
self compensation that the venerably beauteous maid turned 
up her nose at Mrs. William’s boarding house. 

Dispositions like hers are tinder boxes or lucifer matches 
— parlor or otherwise — of dire possibilities. More accurately 

(I20) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


121 


Speaking, they are like old rags which manifest an inscrutable 
tendency to spontaneous combustion, and all the consequences 
connected therewith. 

From the vantage ground of her third story windows she 
commanded a full view of the Square; nor was she above 
observing, so far as she could, what was going on in the neigh- 
boring buildings. She was descended from Eve, and why 
should she not indulge her curiosity, especially when she had 
so much spare time on hand? The widow’s house was within 
range, and using her opera glass one Sunday she saw Don 
leaning over the edge of one of the front attic windows of the 
piemises. She saw him several times afterward in the same 
position, and therefore concluded that he boarded as an attic 
boarder. She did not intend to commit an Irish bull, yet she 
virtually said to herself: “The higher he goes the lower he 
gets.” 

In one of her visits at the Wickworth counting room she 
made it her business to say: “Your Donalds boy cannot be of 
much account, for I have discovered that he lives in an attic.” 

“I do not see how that can be, for I pay three dollars and 
a half a week for his board, and that amount ought to secure 
decent quarters for him,” said the deacon, much surprised. 

“Then you are being deceived,” said Miss Agincourt 
severely; “the widow certainly would not have the brass to 
charge him that amount. At our place those who occupy the 
attics are charged only three-quarter prices.” When she left 
the counting room, to make her insinuations more effective, 
she cautioned her uncle against being imposed upon by an 
unprincipled stripling, and went her way flattering herself that 
she had done a very laudable stroke of business. 

The deacon’s high regard for morals led him to lament the 
sad degeneracy of the modern boy; and his equally high 


122 


AIR CASTLE DON 


regard for his own interests made him chuckle to think that he 
should be able to make a weekly saving on Don’s board bill. 

On Saturday night he bluntly asked: “Don, what do you 
pay for board?” 

Don frankly said that he was paying two dollars and a half, 
and he supposed that, as a matter of course, his management 
of his finances would be seen in its true light and meet with the 
approval of his employer. 

The boy was thunderstruck when the deacon coolly handed 
him two dollars and a half, at the same time saying that there- 
after only that amount would be allowed him for board, but 
his indignation was aroused when the deacon accused him of 
lying, and added insult to injury by reading him a long lecture 
on the evil and danger of falsehood. Don fearlessly defended 
himself and referred the deacon to the original conversation 
with Bert Williams by which the board question was settled 
without his having had any part in it, and he explained the 
plan of self denial and economy by which he had enabled him- 
self to keep himself in decent condition for the store. The 
more he defended himself the more firmly convinced the dea- 
con became of the total depravity of boys in general and of 
Don and Bert in particular. 

Colonel Wickworth easily understood the whole arrange- 
ment, and maintained that Don ought to be commended and 
not condemned, and that he ought to continue to receive the 
amount that had been allowed him. 

But there were Arabella’s suspicions of deliberate con- 
spiracy between the two boys, and the deacon referred to them 
as if they were facts sworn to and confirmed. 

The colonel, becoming impatient at the mention of his 
niece’s connection with the af¥air, said: “No weight should 
be given to Arabella’s guesses; she has nothing to do but to 


AIR CASTLE DON 123 

imagine evil of mankind, and it is a piece of cruel impertin- 
ence for her to peddle her conjectures to you for facts.” 

The elder Wickworth defended the niece, and the alterca- 
tion began to wax warm; the deacon whined and the colonel 
swore. But finally the deacon, shedding his meekness, as a 
snake sheds its overworn and lack-lustre skin, plainly inti- 
mated that if the colonel could not assent to his chief manage- 
ment of the firm’s affairs, he might get out of it as soon as he 
pleased. 

During the wrangle Don’s indignation increased to a white 
heat, and at the first interval in the war .of words he faced the 
deacon squarely, saying: “1 wouldn’t remain in your employ 
for any consideration whatever.” Suiting the action to the 
word, he left the counting room. 

“Do you really mean to leave?” asked the colonel, follow- 
ing him to the outer room. 

“Yes, sir,” said Don firmly; “I am as good as called a liar 
and a thief by your brother, and I’d starve before I’d stay 
under the same roof with such a defamer. But you have been 
very kind to me and I am sorry to be deprived of your watch- 
care and instruction.” 

“I do not blame you for your decision; you could do no 
less,” said the colonel. If at any time you want a friend, come 
to me without delay or hesitation.” And as he shook hands 
with Don he gave him a crisp ten dollar bill out of his own 
private resources. 

Don felt as if the world had suddenly dropped from 
beneath his feet. He shut himself up in his attic, and, unmind- 
ful of the tea bell, sat like one in a dream. Bert entered to 
see why he did not go down. Don, too much humiliated to 
confide in his friend at that moment, pleaded lack of appetite, 
and was left alone. 


124 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Don felt as if he had been stripped of his character, and if 
he had been stripped of his clothing and turned naked upon 
the street he could not have felt worse. His honor and ver- 
acity had been as the apple of his eye, and hitherto they had 
never been assailed. His sensitive imagination became mor- 
bidly apprehensive, and he feared that the evil reputation fast- 
ened upon him by the deacon would follow him in his attempts 
to find another situation in Boston. He thought of returning 
home, but on second thought, disdained the expedient as trea- 
son to his courage. He was quickly impulsive in forming 
plans, too much so for his own good, and he resolved forth- 
with upon what he would do. He had fourteen dollars and 
he would start for some city in the West and begin anew. No 
sooner was this plan formed than hope smiled upon him again, 
and he was in a measure prevented from inflaming his wound 
by thinking too intently of it. In the midst of his projects 
there was a tap at his door. Bert and Nora entered, and 
immediately began to prepare his little attic table with food and 
delicacies drawn from the best supplies the house afforded. 

Don protested against the trouble being taken on his 
account, yet, now that hope had reasserted itself, he availed 
himself of their kindness and ate the food with relish. 

“What is the matter with you? Has anything happened?” 
Bert anxiously asked, beginning to see that Don’s trouble, 
whatever it was, was mental rather than physical. 

“I am adrift again,” was the answer. Then in the midst 
of their exclamations, and in anticipation of their inquiries he 
told what had happened from the time of Miss Agincourt’s 
appearance on the scene to his own disappearance from it. 

“The miserable old busybody!” exclaimed Nora, fixing 
upon Miss Agincourt the blame of the whole misfortune. 

“The hypocritical old punkinhead!” said Bert, laying all 


AIR CASTLE DON 


125 


the blame upon the deacon. Then suddenly recollecting his 
own participation in the three dollar and a half arrangement 
he was overwhelmed with confusion and self accusations, and 
expressed himself accordingly, and assumed most of the blame. 

‘Tt is all owing to my stupid blundering,” he said remorse- 
fully, “and I will see the deacon the first thing in the morning 
and make explanations that will more than satisfy him.” 

“It will be of no use,” said Don, decidedly. “When a man 
dandles a suspicion as a woman does a baby, you might as well 
try to rob a woman of her baby as to try to remove the 
suspicion from the man’s mind. Besides, the deacon mounted 
his pious, white horse as if he had put on the whole armor of 
righteousness, and right or wrong, when a man gets up in 
that style, nothing short of a cannon shot can bring him down 
again.” 

“I’ll fire the shot that’ll fetch him,” Bert said quickly, con- 
fident in the justice of his cause. 

“You haven’t got a gun that’s big enough for that. No 
explanations will avail with him. I gave him all that were 
needed. That whole transaction about the board bill was a 
fair and square transaction. Instead of calling me a deceiver 
and a liar, if he had had a soul in him big enough to put in the 
hollow of a hair, he would have commended me. And that 
is all there is to it. The colonel has a soul bigger than a 
steeple; he stood by me, and quarrelled with the deacon on 
my account, and gave me ten dollars out of his own pocket 
when I left the store. If he were at the head of the concern, 
there would have been no fuss. As it is, nothing will induce 
me to go back there again.” 

Bert saw that no praying to Don would remove the moun- 
tain, and he at once bethought himself of the next best measure 
of relief, 'Well ” he said, hopefully, “the colonel will recom- 


126 


AIR CASTLE DON 


mend you from the crown of your head to the soles of your 
feet, and if people get wind of the real facts of the case they’ll 
be feathers in your cap, and a fool’s cap for the deacon. 

With the premature wisdom that is born of a too early 
experience of the harshness of the world, Don replied: ^‘The 
colonel is my friend, yet, notwithstanding that, a blot has been 
put upon my name, and lies travel leagues before truth can put 
on its boots. ‘A good name is rather to be chosen than great 
riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.’ And I 
am going somewhere else to see if I can’t recover what I 
have lost.” 

“But you are making mountains out of molehills,” objected 
Bert, practically, beginning to see that Don was over sensitive. 
“You haven’t lost your good name, and, what is better, you 
have the satisfaction of knowing that you are in the right. 
It is that old blubber-belted whale that’s in the wrong.” 

“And if that old maid Agincourt were here,” added Nora, 
“she’d get enough of my tongue to make her think she had 
been licked by Spanish flies.” Then suddenly changing from 
her irate tones to her habitually persuasive voice, she said: 
“You won’t leave us, will you?” 

“Of course he won’t,” Bert answered. “Do you suppose 
that he would turn his back upon all our Boston gods and 
notions and go where there are only scrub people and notions 
and no excitements worth noticing?” 

But Nora was not pleased with this reference to the attrac- 
tions of Boston; they excluded all recognition of her own. 
What she most desired to know at this moment was, whether 
or no Don would weigh her in the scales and find her of 
sufficient weight to decide him against leaving the city. She 
looked her thoughts so plainly, that Don, now that separation 
was decided upon, experienced pangs he had not felt before. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


127 


'‘You have been such a good little angel to me, Nora,’' he 
said, “that it will be very hard for me to go away from you.” 

“But you won’t go,” she persisted. 

“Yes,” he replied with the simple directness that befitted 
the fixity of his purpose. 

“Where are you going?” asked Bert, becoming thoroughly 
alarmed at the bare idea of losing his attic chum and tried 
street companion. 

“Out West.” 

“Out thunderation !” Bert gasped in desperation. “Out to 
Chicago, I suppose, to see the Indian and the buffalo, and 'to 
prowl among the prairie dogs and wolves and rattle snakes. 
Out there! where people die by tornadoes and whirlwinds, or 
are frozen stiff by blizzards in the winter or are roasted to a 
crisp by a broiling sun in summer. There! where the men 
wear home-made trousers and the w'omen have coal-scuttle 
bonnets, and where the school houses and churches are built 
of logs or mud, and Bibles, books and paintings are scarcer 
than hens’ teeth. Go out there! where there isn’t a solitary 
great man, nor so much as one famous woman, nor an idea 
that’s big enough to cover the point of a pin, and where the 
best church members are worse than the worst sinners of the 
East, and Heaven is a million miles away, and the other place 
so close by that it crops out at the surface.” And drawing 
partly from his prejudices against the West, and still more 
from his ignorance, and most of all, from the crude notions 
that so many Eastern people had of Western conditions, Bert 
said worse things than are here set down. 

It so happened that Barry, the artist mentioned in a former 
chapter, having been in Chicago, had given Don quite accurate 
accounts of the West in general, and of Chicago in particular, 
so that the country boy was far better acquainted with the now 


128 


AIR CASTLE DON 


acknowledged metropolis of the West than was the Boston boy 
with all his superior advantages. 

Supposing that Bert was indulging in mere sarcasm, Don 
cut the tirade short by saying: “No, Chicago is not in view 
yet; my out West only means Albany. From there I hope in 
the course of time to work my way beyond the Mississippi.” 

“Really?” Bert asked with a sinking heart. 

“Yes, really, Bert. I shall start for Albany day after 
to-morrow.” 

Nora, now in tears, hastened down stairs for her mother, 
and presently brought her up to remonstrate with Don, who, 
however, was not to be moved from his purpose. 

Bert immediately began to adjust himself to the inevitable, 
and on the following evening handed Don a note, saying by 
way of explanation: “I saw the colonel privately this after- 
noon. He says that you did right in determining not to 
remain in the store after what had taken place, but thinks that 
you are acting rashly in leaving Boston so hastily. He 
brought the note over to me just before I started for home, 
and I suppose that it contains a recommendation for which 
I asked.” 

The note embodied the substance of what had been said to 
Bert, and enclosed just such a testimonial as might be 
expected from the soldierly man who wrote it. At twelve 
o’clock on the succeeding day Don reluctantly parted from his 
North Square friends and boarded the cars for Albany. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


LOOK BKFORL YOU LFAP. 

“I am disgusted with this shallow soil and barren surround- 
ings,” said a small tree to itself. And it pulled itself up by the 
roots, and, using them for legs, trotted off to another location. 
The sum of its experience was that it would have done better 
to have remained where it was and devoted itself to growing 
instead of to grumbling. 

Don had made friends of the widow’s family, and of Colonel 
Wickworth and Father Taylor as well, and this, too, by com- 
mending himself to them as trustworthy and true. This was 
a beginning, and by remaining where he was, he would have 
made other friends, and so, would gradually have grown in 
strength, and in the number of his opportunities also. In 
making so great a change for so small a cause, Don was 
throwing away his gains and incurring fresh risks. Little by 
little, or link by link, is the law of both progress and strength. 
We may run away from human nature in one place, but 
wherever we go we shall find a plenty of the same sort, and all 
the more certainly because we can never rid ourselves of 
ourselves. 

After paying his railway fare, Don had seven dollars left 
with which to face the world again. Besides the baggage 
contained in his small sealskin trunk he carried an excess of 
pride, of sensitiveness, of impulse, of self confidence and of 
variableness. Possibly some of this surplus stuff was packed 

(129) 


130 


AIR CASTLE DON 


in him at family headquarters, but doubtless it had been lugged 
about with unnecessary care. Pity it was that he had not by 
his side for handy use a grip-sack filled to the handles with a 
peck or so of forethought or precaution. Such a commodity 
might have saved him a peck of trouble. 

When he arrived at Greenbush, opposite Albany, it was 
dark, and he was sound asleep in his seat and did not hear the 
conductor’s order for passengers bound to Albany to take the 
forward cars. . A rude shake aroused him, and after being told 
that the cars, already moving, were on their way to Troy, he 
was told to stir himself quickly and jump from the train. Not 
being accustomed to railway jumps he reached the ground in 
such a condition that when he came to himself he discovered 
that he was lying upon a wheelbarrow close to a hoarsely 
breathing locomotive in the Greenbush roundhouse. Two 
begrimed railv/ay engineers stood looking down upon him. 
On attempting to rise, severe pain admonished him that it 
would be better for him to lie still. 

“What has happened to me?” he asked in a faint voice. 

“That is just what we should like to know ourselves,” said 
one of the men grimly. We picked you up from the railway 
track where we found you to all appearance as dead as a rail. 
How long you had been there, we do not know. Can’t you 
give us some account of yourself?” 

Don related his story about jumping from the train by 
direction of the conductor. 

“That’s just like Bill Lummix!” exclaimed one of the men 
indignantly; “rather than stop a train to correct a mistake, 
he’d kill half a dozen blunderers. Are you much hurt?” 

With difificulty Don sat upright and began to move himself 
a little to test his limbs. None of them were broken, but the 
right side of his face was badly cut, as was also the outside 


AIR CASTLE DON 


131 


of his right leg. And as for his garments, besides being clot- 
ted and stained with blood, they were badly torn. 

Looking ruefully at his clothes by the aid of the lanterns 
of the two men, he said: from my clothes, I have 

had a pretty rough tumble. I think that I could stand up if 
I were to try hard, but I’d rather not attempt it, just yet.” 

The men were neither thick-headed nor hard-hearted, and 
the one who had just spoken said: “Let us fix you a bit; 
there is no need of trying to stand just yet.” And they gath- 
ered several old jackets and coats and stuffed them in around 
him as well as they could. 

Feeling faint, Don asked for a drink of water. One of the 
men brought his pail containing a night lunch, and gave him 
a drink of cold tea, which so revived Don that he began to 
stir himself a little. 

“Have a bite,” said the kind-hearted fellow, removing the 
top compartment of the pail and revealing sandwiches and pie 
in the lower part. Don was hungry as well as thirsty, but 
protested against robbing the man of his food. 

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself about that,” was the hearty 
reply; “my mate Bob will share his pail with me if you can 
clean out this one.” 

Having eaten, Don sat up, though not without pain. 

The man called Bob, who was waiting for a night freight 
to take his engine, said: “When we went to pick you up, we 
saw two fellows run away from you, and we thought that they 
had done you up for the sake of robbery. As it is, we are 
afraid that they have gone through your clothes. If you had 
any money with you, you had better see if you’ve got it now.” 

Alarmed at this suggestion, Don searched his pockets in 
vain for his pocket book, which contained his money, his 
trunk check, his trunk key and his certificates of character. 


132 


AIR CASTLE DON 


^‘Possibly it may have been shaken out of you where you 
fell, and though there is small chance of finding it, we will go 
and search with our lanterns,” said Bob, moved by Don’s 
distress. 

But they returned as blank as they went, to Don’s utter dis- 
may. Seeing that he was trembling from head to feet at this 
new disaster, the men made inquiries as to whence he came, 
who he was, and where he was going, and what for. They 
did what they could to allay his fears, and afforded him some 
slight comfort by telling him to stay where he was till 
morning. 

Hearing the whistle of his train in the distance. Bob and 
the other man, his temporary fireman, mounted the cab of his 
engine. Before his engine moved several men had gathered 
around Don, and Bob shouted to them as his engine began to 
move: “Say, you fellows, look after that wheelbarrow chap 
kindly; he’s no dead-beat. Give him this dollar for a send-off 
in the morning, and make it two or three if you can.” As the 
engine went out the dollar fell upon the cinders, followed by 
a half dollar sent by the fireman to keep it company. 

The foreman of the roundhouse picked the money up and 
handed it to Don, adding another fifty cents supplemented by 
several dimes and quarters chipped in by the other men. Don 
felt like crying, but somehow the kindness of the apparently 
rough fellows heartened him so much that he said: “I guess 
I’m on the road to Jericho fast enough, but it’s plain that I 
haven’t fallen among thieves in this roundhouse, but among 
good Samaritans.” 

One of the turntable men, ignorant of the Bible, supposing 
that Don referred to his destination, said: “The Boston and 
Albany don’t go to no Jericho. You must have got on the 
wrong road.” 


Am oastlk don 


m 


‘‘Oh, get out!” said another one; “don’t you know enough 
to know that this lad is a sort of a Scripture fellow, and that 
he’s talking Bible at us?” 

“How should I know?” was the reply; “this road gives us 
such a small chance to see the inside of a church or to know 
Sunday when it comes around that there’s no more Bible for 
us than there is for the wind or for running water. But I can 
tell him that though he’ll find no thieves among this gang of 
sinners, he’ll find ’em thick enough outside of the roundhouse, 
and that’s cos we’re so near Albany and the State House.” 

In the little intervals of time that the men had to them- 
selves, they washed the blood from Don’s face and leg. And 
what was still better, as some of them kept needles, thread and 
buttons for personal emergencies, they sewed up the rents in 
his garments as best they could, and supplied the places of 
several buttons that were missing. Don’s hat was among his 
losses, and its place was supplied by a soft hat which looked 
as though it had been run over by a lightning express. 

Observing that Don was scrutinizing the inside of the hat 
with some care, the man who gave it to him said with a hearty 
laugh: “You needn’t look for any population there, my lad; 
it is Bob Flanger’s hat, and he keeps a head on him that is 
cleaner than a peach-blossom, He’s everlastingly soaking his 
head under the hydrant, and that’s as fatal to head-tramps as 
the gallows is to them that’s hung on it.” 

“If I ever get rich I’ll hang this hat in the best place in 
my library in remembrance of Bob and the rest of you,” said 
Don gratefully, and withal relieved to know that it belonged 
to the sturdy engineer. 

“Rich!” exclaimed one of the men rather thoughtlessly; 
“if such a banged-up looking fellow as you ever gets to piling 


134 


AIR CASTLE DON 


money into a bank, it’ll be because creation has got turned 
’totlier end foremost.” 

“Oh, shut off your steam. Black!” impatiently exclaimed 
the man who brought the hat; “can’t you see that you are talk- 
ing to a respectable kid, and not to a young bummer?” 

“When will Bob, as you call him, come back?” Don asked, 
feeling a desire to see him again before he left the roundhouse. 

“There is no telling anything about that,” replied Jake 
Cullum, the hat-man. “His turn is to Chicago and back, and 
when a man goes out of this roundhouse we are sure of 
nothing till his engine’s nose comes puffing in again. ‘Engin- 
eers don’t most always die in their beds,’ you know.” And 
Jake used this bit of railroad slang with so much significance 
that his meaning was far more impressive than if it had been 
dressed up in a tailor-made suit. 

When Don began to grow sleepy the men put two wheel- 
barrows together and filling them with clean cotton waste, 
made him a bed that he could lie in with some comfort. 
Covering him with coats they left him to his slumbers, but at 
no time of the night was he lost sight of altogether. Every 
fresh gang of men that came in took an interest in the boy 
as soon as they were informed of his mishap and of Bob’s care 
for him. The grim monsters of the road, fifteen or twenty in 
all, were alive with fire and steam, and incessantly and harshly 
noisy, but Nature held Don so closely to her breast that he 
slept soundly till dawn. His awaking, however, seemed like 
a hideous nightmare, and it was some time before his confused 
faculties could disentangle him from his illusion. 

Although still stiff and sore, he was able to move about, 
and after eating a sandwich given to him by one of the men, 
he took a look at himself in a piece of mirror that was fast- 
ened to the wall. His face being black and blue, and one eye 


AIR CASTLE DON 


135 


almost closed, he could scarcely recognize himself. His first 
thought was to go over the river to Albany and get access to 
his clothing, but being without either check or key, he at once 
realized that the trunk might as well be in Boston for any good 
it might do him. 

“What shall I do about my trunk?” he asked of Jake 
Cullum, who still kept a kindly watch over him, “now that I 
have lost my check and key with my pocket book?” 

“Well, youngster, youVe got me under a dead engine — 
pinned out of sight;” and Jake scratched his head in vain for a 
solution of the difficulty. Presently brightening, he said: 
“You of course know the contents of the trunk and can 
describe them to the baggage master; that may help you a 
little; but I guess I’ll have to go over with you and swear 
that your story about jumping from the train and all that, is 
true. So, come along, for I have only an hour before my 
engine goes out.” He was but a fireman, yet his heart was 
in the right place. 

Arriving at the baggage room, Don had no sooner stated 
his predicament than an underling of the room, glancing at 
his face and clothing, positively refused to take any further 
notice of him. It was in vain that the fireman backed up his 
claims as well as he knew how; he was not known to the bag- 
gageman, and the two were accused of being pals trying to 
play a transparent confidence game. 

Presently his majesty, the chief baggage master, made his 
appearance, and Don attempted an appeal to him, but the 
underling immediately made his own representation of the case 
and Don and Jake were told that if they did not leave the 
premises forthwith a policeman would be called. 

“You might as well run your head under a locomotive as 
to run afoul of a baggage man without your check,” said Jake 


136 


AIR CASTLE DON 


with a tall oath. “I can do no more for you, and must go 
back to the roundhouse. It’s my opinion that they’ll forget 
all about you in ten minutes, so that, if in half an hour, the 
fellows who stole your pocket book should come around with 
the check, they’ll get the trunk without any questions being 
asked. Good by, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul 
while you’re in this town.” Jake spoke with the bitterness 
of the laboring man who instinctively feels that an unfortunate 
is a snowball rolling down an inclined plane adding to his 
misfortunes with every turn he makes. 

Don tried to obtain access to the higher officials, whose 
offices were in the same building, but his bruised and tattered 
appearance was invincibly against him, and he might as well 
have attempted to board the moon with a view of going to 
some land where the truth is known by reading the heart 
direct. 

Beginning to sufler hunger, he attempted to enter a restau- 
rant, but was no sooner seen than he was ordered into the street. 
He was similarly treated in several other places, which he tried 
one after another. Drifting down toward the river docks in 
a dazed condition, he approached a street stand kept by an old 
Irish woman. She saw so many battered specimens of human- 
ity every day that she took scant notice of Don’s disordered 
person, although she made sure that the worth of his pur- 
chases dropped into her wrinkled palm before the purchases 
passed into his possession. 

"When Jonah and his old sermons, after proving such an 
indigestible problem to the whale, were vomited up on dry 
land again, he must have presented a very disreputable appear- 
ance. And the question is, how did he manage to work him- 
self back into respectable society? But we came near forget- 
ting that Jonah, though coming from a sea of trouble in his 


Am CASTLE DON 


137 


half digested suit of clothes, was far superior to the rich sinners 
of Ninevah who were clothed in fine linen and fared sumptu- 
ously every day. And it is not far to say that even in this day 
of multi-millionaires some who are looked down upon because 
of the inferior appearance they make are infinitely superior to 
some who are looked up to because of their wealth and liveried 
turnouts. 

All that day — a long, long day — Don, so far as his thoughts 
and his experiences were concerned, like the early martyrs, 
“wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and in 
caves of the earth.” When he was again refused lodging- 
house shelter as night came on, he felt as lonely and as much 
abandoned of God and man as if he were cast into the midst 
of the Sahara desert with only the lions for companions. 

Exhausted by his wanderings, with every bruise shooting 
flames of pain, and every thought racking him more than his 
bruises, he went up State street toward the center of the city. 
Here the Capitol building — not the twenty-five million one 
that now crowns the capitoline hill — but the old one — attracted 
his attention. He ascended the steps and took shelter among 
the shadows of the portico, where, overcome, he sat down to 
rest in the obscurest corner he could find. Presently he lay 
prone upon the flagging and fell into a troubled slumber which 
lasted till the morning. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


HOW A CITY BECOMES A THORN BUSH. 

To the wretched and unfortunate one day is as like to 
another as one thorn is like all others that grow upon the same 
bush. And in the nature of the case, although a city may be 
the best of cities as cities go, to the unfortunate it is a hedge 
of thorns through which it is impossible to pass without being 
wounded at almost every step. Albany is as near Heaven as 
any other American city to such as have the means and dis- 
position to avail themselves of its great advantages, but on the 
other hand it is just as near to Tophet as any other city to 
such as have fallen beneath the wheels of fate. 

Although Albany is beautiful for situation and the joy of 
many people, it became a mortal terror to Don. While the 
contributions of the roundhouse philanthropists lasted he could 
appease his hunger by dining cheaply and unmolested at the 
apple stands, after washing himself in the free and friendly 
waters of the Hudson. But when he went the rounds seeking 
employment his appearance was so much against him, he was 
not merely the subject of simple negatives, but the victim of 
positive scorn and cruelty as well. The constant dropping of 
water will wear away a stone, and the constant dripping of 
unkindness wore deep channels through Don’s grit and reso- 
lution. Many a soul has been undermined for time and for 
eternity by such experiences as he passed through, and many 

(138) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


139 


a crime owes its origin to the dogged sullenness which has 
been begotten between the upper and nether millstones of dire 
necessity. Some who shine in society would have reached the 
gallows by the road in which Don found himself, just as some 
who are in the pit and the miry clay may find themselves in 
honorable eminence if but a ladder is put down for their 
assistance. 

The light of day brought little comfort to Don, but the 
nights were times of terror to him. It might have been writ- 
ten of him as it was written of Abraham at a crucial period of 
his life: ‘‘And lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.” 
For Abraham’s darkness there was the mitigation of a smoking 
furnace and a burning lamp. For Don there was apparently 
nothing — but darkness piled on darkness when the sun went 
down. 

Don knew what camping out meant. With a blanket 
between him and the soft moss, and a campfire burning at his 
feet a-night in the woods far from the haunts of men was a 
delight. The picturesque underbrush of the forest ; the 
stream purling over the rocks; the high pines singing music- 
ally overhead; the twitter of the wild bird; the barking of the 
squirrel; the answering echo of the fox; or the defiant hoot of 
the owl; all these but gave zest to the pleasure of camping out 
in the wilderness. Slumber came like soft-footed peace 
among such scenes as these; and if the fairy webs of dreams 
were woven through the corridors of the brain they were the 
webs of the beautiful wonderland. 

But this camping out in a city was another thing. While 
the gas-lights flickered fitfully, and the sounds of footsteps 
diminished and the roll of carriages well nigh ceased alto- 
gether, Don moved about like a lost spirit seeking rest and 
finding none. He took furtive glances at shadowed recesses 


140 


AIR CASTLE DON 


and dark holes in quest of some spot that would be likely to 
escape the watchman’s eye. When such a place was discov- 
ered it required no small degree of strategy to get into it 
without being observed. Once in, the rats were sure to dis- 
pute the occupation with the newcomer. Or a homeless dog, 
seeking the same place, would snif¥ at the occupant, and find- 
ing that he was only a fellow unfortunate, would quietly settle 
down beside him and with timely growls or ominous snaps, 
keep the rats from becoming too familiar or intrusive. 

One night Don took refuge in the dark portico of one of 
the largest and oldest church buildings in the city. While 
lying there, with his head resting upon one arm for a pillow, 
he recalled the words which he had heard so often at home: 
“Let not your hearts be troubled; ye believe in God; believe 
also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it 
were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place 
for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, ye may 
be also.” The words were like a strain of distant music hov- 
ering soft and sweet upon the air; but instead of coming nearer 
and nearer, it receded farther and farther away. Don was 
troubled; there was no question as to that, for the tears were 
raining wormwood drops upon his sleeve. Nor could he help 
being troubled; the waves had gone over him, and the sound 
of many waters put far from him any consolation he might 
have, under other circumstances, found in the text. 

Why did not the Recording Angel whisper in his ear that, 
one day he should stand in the pulpit of that same church and 
preach from that same text with a pertinency and power that 
would carry the great audience with him from the first to the 
last words of the sermon. Perhaps he understood that Ear 
Gate was in a measure barricaded from within to all messages 


AIR CASTLE DON 


141 


of hope. Perhaps the Angel was too busy recording the vices 
and the virtues of humanity — too busy trying to reconcile the 
discrepancies of the balance sheet to notice how sadly in need 
of encouragement Don stood. Perhaps the Angel’s work was 
so exclusively historical that he had not attained the gift of 
prophecy. Probably, in any event, it was better under the 
circumstances that the lad should see through a glass darkly, 
for a too dazzling light is totally blinding to eyes that are not 
strong. 

When the day broke and while Don was cautiously making 
his way down to the street for another day’s start in the world, 
his eyes happened upon the tin directory of the church. 
Among the things he saw on the directory were the name and 
the address of the pastor, “The Rev. John Paul Lovejoy.” 
That was a name to conjure with, and he determined to seek 
the owner of it before another night came. “Possibly,” he 
thought to himself, “The Rev. John Paul Lovejoy may be able 
to tell me what to do ; or he may put me in the way of getting 
work. I know that I am a hard looking customer, but a min- 
ister ought to know that bad appearances may sometimes be 
just as deceitful as good appearances.” 

Inspired by hope, he breakfasted on a sandwich and then 
went down to the river to make his toilet preparatory to his 
important call. It never occurred to him that the forenoon 
might be an unpropitious time for calling on a minister. So 
far as the habits of his own father were concerned, there was 
no distinction in times. The village minister’s rule was— “The 
man who wants to see me is the man I am placed here to see.” 

Don went to the residence of The Rev. John Paul Lovejoy 
and rang the bell boldly. A tidy German girl answered, but 
the moment she saw him she made an almost involuntary 
movement to close the door in his face. A second glance at 


142 


AIR CASTLE DON 


the caller arrested her movement, and she inquired his busi- 
ness, after noticing that the lad was moistening his lips as if 
trying to find his words. 

‘'I am in great trouble and want to see the minister, if you 
please,” he at length managed to say with simple directness, 

“The dominie is in his study busy with his sermon, and 
his order is that he is not to be disturbed in the forenoon unless 
it is absolutely necessary.” And the girl spoke her lesson as 
one who had learned it well enough to be in little danger of 
forgetting it. 

“It is necessary for me to see him,” said D.on, thinking 
only of his own urgent side of the case. 

Something in the caller’s manner and tone appealed to both 
the respect and sympathy of the girl, and she said without 
further hesitation: “If you will wait, I will go and see what 
he says, though I am afraid that he will be displeased. The 
dominie is quite particular.” 

“The dominie! Why does she call him that?” said Don 
to himself while waiting outside the closed door. He had 
never heard the word used except as a Latin title for The Lord, 
and it struck him as being little less than blasphemous to apply 
it to a minister. While he was musing the minister himself 
came to the door with pen in hand and the ink still wet upon 
its point. He stood in velvet slippers, had on a long silk 
dressing gown, wore spotless linen, a wide white choker, and 
gold-rimmed eye glasses, and altogether, presented an appear- 
ance of dignity which might have made one who was extremely 
ignorant of heavenly things believe that he was the Lord 
himself. 

As soon as The Rev. John Paul Lovejoy cast eye upon 
Don, he frowned ominously, and curtly asked: ^Wour 
business?” 








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AIR CASTLE DON 


143 


“I am in trouble,” Don began. 

“Oh, yes — of course,” the minister interrupted tartly; “the 
unfortunate are as plentiful as paving stones. I have no time 
to listen to you: but here is a dime.” 

Don put his hands behind him and drew back, saying: “I 
did not come for money, but for advice.” Before the words 
were fully spoken, the minister turned and closed the door with 
an emphatic bang. After blistering the serving girl for calling 
him down to see such a beggar, he returned to the sermon 
which he was to preach before The City Charitable Society 
from the text: “And now, abideth faith, hope, charity, these 
three; but the greatest of these is charity.” 

The Rev. John Paul Lovejoy, D. D., was an able, popular 
preacher and much sought after for great occasions. In his 
sermon he intended to magnify corporate charity, and to dep- 
recate private alms-giving as the bane of modern society. He 
was so intent upon this that he left no private path in which 
one might walk as a messenger of God to the poor and needy. 
His opinions were graded more from the door view of annoy- 
ance from necessitous cases, than from the view of God, the 
pitiful Father of both the rich and the poor. Yet he was not 
without his benevolent moments, for his somewhat bold signa- 
ture figured largely in the advertisements of men who manu- 
factured cures for corns, indigestion, flatulency, colic, minister- 
ial hysterics, loss of brain power and other ills “too numerous 
to mention.” Freely he had received and freely he had given 
— of the influence of his illustrious name to help the benevol- 
ent patent medicine venders to the rewards they so eminently 
deserved. Over his study door hung the motto — the words 
of J. Martineau: “To get good, is animal; to do good, is 
human; to be good, is divine.” 

When Don went down the parsonage steps he felt as 


144 


AIR CASTLE DON 


though his heart had descended to zero. “The slippered, 
sleek, begowned old pharisee,” he said to himself, “he ought 
to go over to the Greenbush roundhouse and take a few lessons 
in Christianity from the engineers, firemen and turntable men ! 
Could he not afford to give me ten words of kindness? Ten 
cents! That’s about the size of The Reverend John Paul 
Lovejoy, D. D. Thank Heaven, my father was not cut out of 
the goods that fellow is made of.” 

He remembered the evening that he and Bert spent in 
Theodore Parker’s study by special invitation. And he 
remembered that while they were there, several unfortunate 
people were admitted to the study, and that instead of being 
brushed aside like vermin, they were treated as though they 
were angels in disguise. The monster of heresy exemplified 
the beauties of charity, and the paragon of orthodoxy illus- 
trated the ugliness of suspicion. Don was almost ready to 
become a heretic again. But as heresy is fanned to its highest 
by opposition and as there was no one to oppose him, he let 
his thoughts run in the grooves that had been channeled out 
by the forefathers. 

His thoughts were diverted from the blank reception he 
had experienced by a discovery which was far more aggravat- 
ing than the contempt he had been made the subject of at the 
hands of a “dominie.” 

In passing up one of the by streets he stopped to look into 
the show window of a pawn broker’s shop. The first objects 
that his eyes rested upon were his nine books, his Bible, his 
flute and the very garments he so much needed to improve his 
appearance while making the rounds in search of work. The 
thieves who robbed him while he lay unconscious on the rail- 
road track had used the check for the trunk, and had then 


AIR CASTLE DON 


145 


disposed of the contents to the Jew, who now had them 
ticketed for sale. 

Without thinking of the difficulty in the way of regaining 
his things, Don hastened into the shop and demanded to know 
how they came into the possession of the Jew. 

“It ish none of your pizzness,” was the defiant reply, given 
after the Jew had surveyed Don from head to feet. 

“It is my business; they were stolen from me,” said Don, 
angrily. 

“You vas get out of this, or I vill put you out,” threatened 
the Jew, advancing upon him as if to lay hands upon him. 

Seeing that he had made a mistake in his approaches, Don 
left the shop, and although he thought he had little to hope for 
from a policeman, he spoke to one who was passing and 
informed him of his discovery, and the circumstances leading 
to the loss of the trunk. Impressed by the straightforward 
account given, the officer turned back and went with him to 
the Jew’s window. 

But the Jew had seen Don conversing with the officer, and, 
surmising his purpose, he gave orders to have the things 
removed and concealed. Don was confounded by their dis- 
appearance. The officer, who was well acquainted with the 
tricks of this branch of business, said: “You should have 
come to me first; he has taken advantage of the warning you 
gave to put your things out of sight. Nothing but a search 
warrant would be available now, and even that might fail. 
Besides, in a case like this, no law can be set in motion without 
money, and I judge from your appearance and from your story 
that you have nothing to throw away on law officers and 
methods.” 

“No, indeed; I see that I can do nothing,” said Don 
despairingly. 


146 


AIR CASTLE DON 


The officer left him to battle with this new misfortune and 
disappointment as best he migliL As he stood in front of the 
window aimless and miserable, the Jew came out and with a 
malicious leer said: “If you vas see something you like, I 
schall sell it to you cheap as dirt, you vas so very smart.” 

His victim moved on, feeling as though he had been stung 
by an adder, while the Jew, after watching him a moment, went 
inside and made merry at the clever way in which he had out- 
witted both the officer and the boy. 

But a grim spirit of endurance was developing in Don. 
He remembered seeing the trees of the forest bending beneath 
the accumulations of repeated snow storms, and then resuming 
their native erectness when the load melted away, and he 
thought to himself: “In spite of these things, I’ll not break 
yet awhile.” 

On Sunday he went into the humblest church edifice he 
could find in the hope of picking some crumb of comfort from 
the services. An usher met him as he entered, but instead of 
conducting him to a pew, he placed a chair for him against the 
back wall of the audience room. Don bowed his thanks with 
the formality of Chesterfield, and smiled in spite of the insult. 
The usher saw him smile, and, taking it as a proof of depravity, 
regretted that he had not directed the unwelcome visitor to go 
away till his bruised face looked less pugilistic and his clothes 
less like the rags of a vagabond. The elephant is a gigantic 
beast, yet it is thrown into mortal terror at the sight of a 
mouse; society is a mighty creature, yet the too near approach 
of a soul that is not clothed according to the fashion plates 
throws it into spasms. 

The minister, an aged gentle-looking man, won Don’s 
heart, and for a moment he wished that he could unburden 
himself to him. His experience with The Reverend John Paul 


AIR CASTLE DON 


147 


Lovejoy, D. D., alias The Rev. Theophilus Thistle, the thistle 
sifter, came to mind with such depressing force, that he 
repressed the desire, and although the service was as balm to 
his wounds, he went out determined to bear his own burden 
until such time as God himself should see fit to cut the bands 
which bound it to his back. 


CHAPTER XV. 


SPIRITS IN PRISON. 

That night Don slept under a hedge in the public park. 
In the morning he put himself upon an allowance of one sand- 
wich a day; half of it to be eaten for breakfast and the other 
half for dinner and supper, for the roundhouse fund was 
reduced to thirty-six cents. 

“What shall I do when my money is gone?” Don asked the 
question with fear and trembling. And this very question is 
daily asked by tens of thousands with feelings bordering on 
agony and despair. The inability to ignore a dread uncer- 
tainty is the fountain head of much of the bitterness that wells 
up from the heart of humanity. Wrong itself is oftentimes 
but the outburst of the suffering produced by this uncertainty. 

By ten o’clock the clouds with which the day began poured 
down floods which carried the filth of the city in roaring 
streams into the Hudson river. The rain continued the rest 
of the day and well along toward midnight. In spite of all he 
could do Don became drenched to the skin and chilled to the 
bone. Becoming desperate, he asked a policeman to direct 
him to some station where he would be allowed to remain 
during the night. The policeman had not been able to make 
any arrests during the day as trophies of his vigilance, and he 
gladly took his applicant in charge as prisoner and led him 
away. A few minutes after, Don, now thoroughly alarmed, 

(148) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


149 

was arraigned before the station desk and recorded upon the 
police blotter under headings which described him as a 
vagrant, suspicious character, and as one who should be sent 
to the workhouse. 

He was led up stairs and locked in a narrow cell to which 
mice, roaches and rats had been accustomed to have free access 
in no small numbers as they prowled around in search of 
crumbs scattered about by the prisoners. A bare plank served 
the purpose of a bed. There were fourteen prisoners in the 
adjoining cells; three fallen women, one girl, two boys and the 
rest men. Don’s appearance was the signal for many ironical 
remarks and salutations, which increased to profanity and 
obscenity when he persisted in keeping silent. When the 
officer left the corrider one of the prisoners began to sing 
snatches of a ribald song, the chorus of which was joined in 
with great gusto by the others. Then came a violent verbal 
quarrel between two of the women who were confined in one 
cell and who were partly intoxicated; this was accompanied by 
highly seasoned comments made by the other prisoners. 
During the height of the quarrel, a male voice, full, clear and 
comparatively well cultivated, and which had not been heard 
before, began to sing one of Thomas Hood’s well known melo- 
dies. The words, so strangely out of place, and so immedi- 
ately telling in their effects upon the prisoners began with : 

‘T remember, I remember. 

The house where I was born, 

The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn’; 

He never came a wink too soon. 

Nor brought too long a day, 

But now I often wish the night 
Had borne my breath away!” 


150 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Continuing through the second and third verses without 
faltering, the singer followed with the fourth: 

“I remember, I remember 
The hr trees dark and high; 

I used to think their slender tops 
Were close against the sky; 

It was a childish ignorance, 

But now ’tis little joy 

To know Fm further off from Heaven 

Than when I was a boy.” 

During the singing there were no interruptions; at the 
close someone was sobbing. During the remainder of the 
night there was an unbroken silence, save when htful dreams 
wrung from ruined souls fragmentary revelation of passion, 
crime and remorse. The words of the song sent Don’s 
thoughts bounding homeward, but he was greatly solaced to 
know that he was not in prison for crime or any fault of his 
own, and for the first time in his life he realized that a good 
conscience is better than a great fortune. 

In the morning, in company with the other prisoners, he 
was marched to the police court to be arraigned before the 
police judge. Rapid as was the disposal of the prisoners, the 
judge was a man of keen discernment and impartial justice. 
After a few preliminary questions to Don, he silenced the 
accusing policeman, ignored the record of the blotter, and 
pursuing his examination elicited from the victim of circum- 
stances a brief and transparent account of his misfortune. 

“You are honorably discharged,” he said at the close; and 
then with great kindness, added: “I am sorry for you, my 
lad, and I advise you to employ all your energy in getting 
back to your home and friends. You are far too young to 
attempt to face the world alone.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


151 


The next case, and the last on the docket, was a stranded 
actor, who proved to be the man who sung Hood’s words. 
He had been taken in in precisely the same way that Don was, 
and was discharged by the judge without hesitation. The two 
passed out together, and had no sooner reached the outside of 
the station than the actor, touching Don on the shoulder, 
assumed a tragic air and recited the words of Hamlet: 

“To be, or not to be — that is the question — 

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. 

And by opposing end them? To die— to sleep — 

No more; and by a sleep, to say we end 
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to — ’tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished.” 

“Don Donalds,” he continued in the same farcically tragic 
manner, “we have breakfasted on prison fare; now whither 
shall we go to dine and wine? But I forgot; methinks our 
purses are but filled with empty air, if purses we possess, and 
empty air is only fit for disembodied spirits, whose unsubstan- 
tial pulp makes teeth and stomach superfluous encumbrances.” 
Taking Don by the hand he shook it gravely, adding: “Fare- 
well to you where e’er you go. And, alas! a long farewell to 
all my greatness, for I no revenue have, but my good spirits 
to feed and clothe me. I’m but a pipe for Fortune’s finger 
to sound what stop she pleases.” 

The eccentric and unfortunate actor had so much theatrical 
bric-a-brac stowed away in his brain that common sense could 
not find even standing room. But the pathetic wail he sung 
on that eventful night in prison, and the spell of good it cast 
upon the occupants of the cells, Don could never forget to his 
dying day. As soon as he was well clear of the actor he turned 


152 


AIR CASTLE DON 


his footsteps toward the river determined to act upon the 
advice of the kindhearted judge so far as he could. To leave 
Albany and to return to Boston was now his all absorbing aim. 
He started along the railway leading from Greenbush with 
three sandwiches and a few cents in his pocket. The pure, 
sweet free air of the country was an inspiration to him. At 
noon he dined on a sandwich and a fresh turnip which he 
found by the roadside. At intervals during the day he met 
tramps who, at that season of the year infested the entire 
length of the Boston and Albany Railroad. Few passed him 
without attempting to enter into conversation. Most of them 
were dangerous looking men. Now and then he came upon 
boys who appeared to be younger than himself. He became 
disquieted with the thought that he was hovering dangerously 
near the borders of tramp life, that bottomless pit over which 
is written: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” 

By dark he was in sight of the lights of Pittsfield, and being 
footsore and weary, he began to look for something that would 
serve as a shelter for the night. A lone haystack in a secluded 
field looked invitingly attractive and he burrowed into th^ side 
that was farthest from the railroad, and there, congratulating 
himself upon his surroundings as contrasted with those of the 
prison of the previous night, he fell into a peaceful sleep. 

He had not been long asleep when he was awakened by the 
voices of two tramps who were taking their lodgings in the 
opposite side of the stack, and making the air smell rank to 
Heaven with the offense of the rankest kind of tobacco smoke. 
As they soon became quiet, and were evidently unsuspicious 
of his own presence he again composed himself for slumber. 
This time he dreamed of hell and with such a vivid sense of 
actual flames of torment that he awoke in terror. The stack 
was a mass of flames and at the instant of his escape toppled 


AIR CASTLE DON 


153 


over on the side occupied by the tramps whose pipes were 
evidently responsible for the disaster. He could find no trace 
of the men and never knew whether they escaped or were 
incinerated in the flames. 

The red dawn was breaking in the East and he resumed his 
journey on the road, and happily escaped being called to 
answer for the destruction of the stack. The sun was just ris- 
ing when he entered Pittsfield. As he was walking among the 
freight trains assembled on the network of tracks belonging 
to the freight yard, and was in the act of passing a locomotive 
he was amazed, yet inexpressibly pleased to hear someone in 
the cab say: 

“Hello, Don Donalds! Where in time did you come from? 
Plave you turned tramp And almost before he could 
recover from his astonishment, honest Jake Cullum of the 
roundhouse in Greenbush was shaking him by the hand and 
poring out a mixed volley of exclamations and questions. 

The engineer was also one of the roundhouse saints, and 
leaning from his cab he hailed Don as cordially and with as 
much interest as his fireman had done. “Your eye is getting 
better,” he said, “and your cheek will be all right as soon as 
the scab comes off, but your duds seem to be losing what your 
skin has gained, though r)Ob FlangeP.s hat sticks to you like 
a true friend. What have you been doing since you left us?” 

By this time the conductor of the freight came near, and as 
Don, in answer to questions, ./'related his experience,” several 
other men who, besides Jake’s train, were waiting for a 
belated passenger train, gathered around and listened to what 
was going on. 

Don was so elated at the idea of being among friends 
again that he gave quite a humorous twist to his account of his 
sorrows. Nevertheless more than one eye was dimmed by 


154 


AIR CASTLE DON 


moisture, and several strong expletives dropped from the lips 
of the men in expression of the sympathy they felt. 

“If I had the handling of some of those Albany chaps,’’ 
said Jake, “I’d make them drink tar for a week and then throw 
them into the firebox of my engine for fuel.” 

“Going to Boston, are you?” asked the conductor, and on 
Don’s answering in the affirmative, he added: “But don’t you 
know that in attempting to walk that distance you place your- 
self in danger of becoming a regular member of the tramp 
brigade?” 

“Let’s give him a jog on our train,” said Jake eagerly; “I 
know it’s against the rules and all that sort of thing, but so 
many rules have been broken for the crushing of the boy, it’s 
high time that some were broken for the sake of saving him. 
It takes a tough one to walk from here to Boston, and he’d 
starve to death or die in his tracks before he got over half the 
distance.” 

“I guess we can fix it,” said the conductor. 

“And like enough lose your situation for your pains, for 
just now the spotters of the company are keeping a sharp eye 
upon us,” remarked a cautious yardman who, while he was as 
much concerned for Don as any of them, did not wish to see 
the conductor compromise himself by carrying a passenger 
without authority. 

“Put him in a box car, and carry him as far as Worcester, 
the end of our run,” suggested Jake. 

“That’s talking United States!” exclaimed a brakeman; 
“it can be done as easy as swearing.” 

“No,” interrupted Don, decidedly. “I’m going to Boston 
honestly, or not at all. No rules shall be broken on my 
account. It would not only place me in the wrong by making 
a railway sneak of me, but it would place everyone on the 


AIR CASTLE DON 155 

train in the wrong, and that is altogether too big a price to 
pay for a railroad ride.” 

“The youngster is right — sound hearted to the core,” 
replied the conductor, but I didn’t propose to help him on by 
running the rules out; there’s too much risk in doing that. 
My brother is head man at headquarters, and I’ll telegraph to 
him about the whole business; I am quite sure that he will 
telegraph an order here for a ticket for at least a part of the 
distance.” 

The conductor, after being absent fifteen minutes, came 
back and handed Don a ticket from Pittsfield to Boston on 
second class. “There,” said he, as joyfully as if Don were his 
own relative, “that will save your shoe leather, and what is of 
more consequence, it will keep you from getting mixed up 
with the lousy tramps. Now you’d better scramble off to the 
passenger station for number five will soon be here.” 

Don couldn’t find' many words to voice his gratitude — he 
was too deeply moved for that, but he found his feet fast 
enough and set them in rapid motion for the passenger station. 
Jake was so glad for the boy that he jumped upon his engine 
and with the connivance of his engineer and conductor, sent 
out a series of parting shrieks from his engines that excited the 
wonder of the yard and town, and awoke the echoes of the 
hills far and near. 

“There,” he growled with satisfaction, “that’s against the 
rules, too, but I’ll be darned if it isn’t time for something to 
be broken for a chap that’s as true blue as the sky, and that’s 
been knocked about like a tin can tied to a dog’s tail.” 

The engineer laughed, and then suddenly exclaimed with 
a look of annoyance: “By Jove, we’ve played the fool after 
all!” 

“How?” asked the fireman, surprised. 


156 


AIR CASTLE DON 


‘‘We forgot the collection, and that’s enough to knock the 
bottom out of all our preaching.” 

“Well, I’ll be darned!” sighed the fireman, aghast at the 
omission. “That’s as bad as sending a ship to sea without 
any provision. But look here! It isn’t too late yet.” 

“Yes, it is. There’s number five now, and she’ll pull out 
before we can get down to the station.” 

“That won’t make any difference if we’re in earnest. Let’s 
make up two dollars and telegraph next station to give it to 
him, and we’ll pay as we go through.” 

“You are level headed Jake, sure.” 

So the amount was made up, and the conductor again called 
into use, wired: “Find boy in second class, number five, with 
bruised eye and cheek and give him two dollars. Will refund 
as we come along. His name is Don Donalds.” 

When number five stopped at next station, Don was 
alarmed as well as amazed, when a man, who was evidently in 
a hurry, confronted him with the question: “Is your name 
Don Donalds?” 

On leceiving confirmation of his conjecture, he gave Don 
the telegram to read, and without further ceremony handed 
him two dollars, and hurried away, for the train was already 
beginning to move. 

With the telegram and money in hand, it did not take Don 
long to unfathom the mystery. Flis money was all gone with 
the exception of ten cents, and the two dollars dissipated a new 
cloud of anxiety that was beginning to settle upon him. 

“God bless them,” he said. “They don’t wear velvet slip- 
pers, silk dressing gowns and white chokers, like The Rever- 
end John Paul Lovejoy, D. D., but they are solid gold while 
he is only gilt-brass.” 


CHAPTER XVL 


A PERPLEXED FAMILY. 

'Tt is fourteen days since Don left us’* said Bert to his 
mother in the presence of Nora, ‘‘and I haven’t had a word 
from him yet. He promised to write to me the first day after 
his arrival in Albany, and I supposed that his promise was as 
good as a fact. I never was more disappointed in a fellow in 
my life. It is a shabby way to treat one’s best friend.” 

“You are not his best friend if you begin to think mean 
things about him,” Nora replied with a good deal of earnest- 
ness. “There must be some reason for his silence, and you 
ought to wait before you condemn him.” 

The little mother sided with Nora; she was getting anxious 
about Don, but she had kept her thoughts to herself. Now, 
she involuntarily expressed herself by saying: “I hope 
nothing serious has happened to him ; he certainly would have 
written you had it been possible for him to do so.” 

At the bare thought of harm to his attic chum Bert’s loy- 
alty reasserted itself, and he said: “I am shabby myself to 
suspect him of being shabby. He is high spirited and proud, 
and it is more than likely that, failing to find anything to do, 
he has run short of money and has put off writing until he 
could give a good account of himself.” 

“Short of money, and in a strange city!” exclaimed Nora, 

(157) 


158 


AIR CASTLE DON 


horrified by the thought. “What will he do? What can he 
do without money?” 

“If he is short of money, that’s all the more reason why he 
should have written. I have five dollars that he might have 
just as well as not,” said Bert. 

“And I have sixty-five cents that could be added to it,” 
said Nora. “Can’t we send it to him without waiting to hear 
from him?” 

“We haven’t his address,” Bert replied, “and besides, for 
aught we know, he may have started for that horrid Chicago 
and gone to work gathering prairie dogs and rattles from the 
rattle snakes to bring back to us. He is a great fellow for the 
country and country curiosities, you know.” And Bert spoke 
without the sign of a smile. 

“You are just awful to make light of such a serious thing!” 
said Nora quite angrily. 

“Let us wait a few days,” the widow suggested soothingly. 
“We may hear good news from him yet.” 

But Nora was not to be pacified. For the first time in her 
life the thought of being without money had come to her in all 
its dread significance, and she kept asking: “What can he do 
without money?” Getting no satisfactory answer, she went to 
her room and throwing herself upon the bed, she sobbed till 
both her tears and her apprehensions were exhausted. 

On Saturday afternoons she was in the habit of taking pro- 
tracted airings on the Common. Miss Arabella Belinda Agin- 
court was in the habit of doing the same thing. Each one 
preferred the Beacon Mall, where the noblest elms swayed 
their branches in umbrageous glory, and the nobbiest people 
displayed their attire in all its gay diversity, whilst the repre- 
sentatives of the common people mixed among them, or sat 
upon the seats of the mall to watch and to make their demo- 


AIU CASTLE DON 159 

cratic comments upon the pageantry of fashion and the 
grandeur of uplifted noses. 

The day following the family council about Don was Sat- 
urday, and Nora went out to take her usual afternoon prom- 
enade among the elect or elite, the two words amounting to 
the same thing in the mental eye of the world. She had but 
just reached the favorite mall when she met Miss Agincourt 
face to face, and remembering the part she had played as Don’s 
evil genius, Nora gave her a succession of glances that were 
eloquently contemptuous and vindictive. 

Being arrayed and powdered to the fullest extent of her 
resources. Miss Agincourt looked down upon the little, plainly 
dressed girl with pitying complacency. Seeing that the old 
maid was not annihilated by her withering eye-volleys, Nora 
turned and followed behind her and took her full measure of 
vengeance by making malicious comments to herself upon the 
attire of Don’s enemy. Not content with this, she mimicked 
her mincing gait to such an extent that those near watched the 
artful pantomime with great amusement, and in some instances 
with open laughter. It was surely a very unbecoming piece 
of conduct for a little saint who could quote Scripture so con- 
tinuously and appropriately, and all the more unbecoming, 
because the victim of this spontaneous malice was unaware of 
what was going on behind her. 

Suddenly Nora uttered a suppressed cry of pain and imme- 
diately started for home, where she arrived pale, and panting 
from the effects of her haste. Miss Agincourt just as suddenly 
changed her course and made her way directly to the counting 
room of Wickworth & Co., into which she had no sooner 
entered than she said to the colonel, who happened to be alone; 
‘That Donalds boy has turned out just as I expected. He 
didn’t leave the city as you supposed. I have just seen him 


160 


AIR CASTLE DON 


sitting on one of the seats of Beacon Mall, and a more hard- 
ened and disreputable looking boy I have never seen.” 

“You must be mistaken,” said the colonel severely, for he 
had not forgiven his relative’s interference in Don’s case. 
“He certainly left the city for Albany.” 

“I am not mistaken,” she replied, meeting her uncle’s 
severe gaze with a touch of defiance. “Notwithstanding his 
dreadful hat and clothes and a big scab on his cheek, I 
recognized him as certainly as I now recognize you. He 
looked as dissipated as if he had been bumming about the city 
ever since he left the store. And he recognized me, for the 
moment his eye met mine, he jumped up from the seat and fairly 
ran away. He lied to you about leaving the city, just as he 
lied to you about his board bill.” 

“He told the truth about his board bill ; and I happen to 
know by the testimony of Bert Williams, who saw him board 
the Albany train, that he purchased a ticket for Albany with 
part of the money that I gave him when he left us. That boy 
is no liar, and if you have seen him, as you say you have, he 
has been unfortunate. And instead of following him up with 
your unfounded suspicions, you should have accused yourself 
as being in part responsible for his misfortune, and should have 
spoken to him and tried to put yourself in the way of making 
some reparation for the serious injury you did him. It is no 
small crime to be instrumental in casting a cloud upon an 
innocent boy’s future. I shall be uneasy about him until I 
hear more of him, and if I had any clue to him I should try to 
find him. I have been worrying about him ever since he left 
here, for the more I have thought about him, the more I have 
been convinced of his worth and of the harm that has come to 
him through your impertinent meddling with things that did 
not concern you.” As usual with the colonel when he became 


AIR CASTLE DON 101 

indignant enough to use the whip, the sting was in the end of 
the lash. 

Miss Agincourt, growing red in the face, said: 'If the 
deacon were here, he’d protect me from your insults.” 

"I mean no insult, but if he were here I’d say the same 
things, and possibly, if he joined with you, I should say 
harsher things than I have already uttered.” 

Miss Agincourt hurried away in no amiable temper, and 
she had no sooner closed the door behind her than the colonel 
gave vent to his annoyance by using some hot Mexican War 
expressions, which might burn through the paper if they were 
put down in black and white. 

When Nora reached home she was so excited she could 
scarcely control herself: “Oh, mother,” she began, “I have 
seen Don, and such a wretched sight as he was, was enough 
to break one’s heart.” 

“Control yourself, my dear; you certainly must be mis- 
taken,” said the little mother, alarmed at her child’s agitation, 
and no less so at what she said. 

“Oh, mother, I did see him! And that hateful Agincourt 
saw him as plainly as I did; and I saw the wicked sneer that 
came to her face when she recognized him. Don looked per- 
fectly dreadful ! He had an old hat on that looked as if it had 
been picked up in somebody’s back yard. And there was a 
great scab on his cheek. And there he sat without a collar, 
and his shirt looked the color of the walk beneath his feet. 
His clothes were dreadfully soiled, and torn besides; and his 
shoes were nearly worn out, and you know how particular he 
was about his dress and looks. He saw me, too, and when I 
started to go toward him, his face turned red and he ran away 
from me. I believe that he has walked all the way back from 
Albany and that someone has been pounding him, or that he 


162 


AIR CASTLE DON 


has met with some dreadful accident, and that he was so 
ashamed of his appearance that he didn’t want me to speak to 
him. Oh, if he had only waited for me I would have brought 
him home with me, even if all Boston had stared at us!” 
And Nora, exhausted by her excitement, began to cry and 
wring her hands. 

Her mother was much perplexed, but the more she ques- 
tioned Nora, the more was she convinced of the correctness 
of her representations. She was filled with anxiety and could 
not restrain her own tears. 

As soon as Bert came home, the story was poured into his 
ears, and lost nothing in the retelling by Nora. He ques- 
tioned her on every point, and found it difficult even then to 
believe that she had really seen him. 

*‘lt must have been somebody else who resembled him, 
just as Don and I resemble each other,” he said, anxiously 
seeking a loophole of escape from his fears. 

“Then why should he turn red at seeing me, and run away 
from me?” Nora replied, shutting her brother up to her own 
conviction. 

He went over to the Coverts to see Miss Agincourt. The 
amiable maiden had already acquainted Covert and his wife 
with her discovery, and the first thing Covert said when he 
saw Bert was: “So, you have heard from your pet attic 
boarder? Are you going to take him in again?” 

“Is Miss Agincourt in?” Bert asked without noticing 
Covert’s question. “If she is I should like to see her alone for 
a few minutes.” 

“Oh, of course! You want to hear the story straight and 
hot from her own lips. She is in the reception room and will, 
I know, be very glad to see you.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


163 


Bert was no sooner in the presence of the lady than he 
began with: “Did you see Don Donalds this afternoon^ Miss 
Agincoiirt? Nora says he was on the Common, and that you 
saw him at the same time she did. I thought it possible for 
her to be mistaken.” 

Miss Agincourt smiled so maliciously that Bert was 
answered before she spoke. Taking time to frame her reply 
in accordance with her smile, she went on to say with a most 
provoking deliberation: “From the outcry your sister made, 
and from the way she started toward him, I think that I am 
justified in saying that she recognized him as easily as I did, 
notwithstanding his rags and filth.” 

“His rags and filth!” Bert exclaimed, white with rage at 
the evident satisfaction with which she used the words. “If 
he was in rags and filth, it is because you pulled away the 
ladder by which he was trying to climb and dumped him 
among the mud and stones. If I were not a gentleman mak- 
ing a call upon a lady Td say more and worse. I beg your 
pardon for speaking so plainly.” 

Miss Agincourt indulged in such a peculiarly sharp-pointed 
laugh that Bert dropped from the heights of the man down to 
the impulsive boy that he was, and suddenly burst out with: 
“May God have mercy upon your poor little, miserable, 
skinny, powder-faced soul!” 

“Tut, tut! you young scamp!” interrupted Covert, hasten- 
ing into the room from the place where he had been eaves- 
dropping. “If you don’t know how to control your tongue, 
you must get into the street as quickly as your feet can carry 
you.” 

“Save your breath, Mr. Covert— it is so very, very valuable; 
and trust me to know enough to get out of a den of vipers 
Wthout waiting for orders to go.” Bert had already risen to 


164 


AIR CASTLE DON 


take his leave, and he shot this parting arrow with such down- 
right venom that both Covert and Miss Agincourt winced 
under the stroke. 

“Yes, it was Don beyond a doubt,” said Bert in answer to 
his mother’s inquiries. “And that Agincourt viperess is actu- 
ally rejoicing over what she called his rags and filth. What 
do you think of that for a specimen of womankind?” 

“She is not a fair specimen of the sex to which your sister 
and mother belong, but'she is a sample of people of both sexes 
who are disappointed if their evil surmisings fail of fulfillment.” 

“She tried to make her uncle believe that Don was a liar, 
and now she will go to him and try to convince him that he is 
a criminal also,” said Nora bitterly. 

If they had known that the sweet Arabella had already been 
to the store, and that she had already been roasted by the 
colonel they would not have wondered at her lack of com- 
passion for the unfortunate Don, for roasted people are apt to 
reserve their compassion for themselves. 

The explanatory guesses of the little family were not far 
from the truth. They concluded that Don had been over- 
taken by some unaccountable misfortune, and that having 
returned to the city in a beggarly condition, his pride had 
prompted his escape from Nora, and would prevent him from 
coming to the house or from putting himself in the way of 
being seen by anyone who knew him. They feared that he 
would suffer to the last verge of endurance before his pride 
yielded. 

“To-morrow is Sunday,” said Nora, lighting up with a 
faint hope, “and you must spend the day searching for him. 
Perhaps he may be on the Common again.” 

Bert spent the day roaming the Common, the Public 
Garden and the streets where he thought he would be likely 


Ain CASTLE DON 


1G5 


to happen upon his chum. He searched in vain. The fear 
that Don was without a shelter to cover his head, filled the 
family with such dismay that silence became their only refuge. 

Colonel Wickworth did not dismiss Don from his mind with 
the departure of Miss Agincourt from the store. He had a 
high opinion of his worth, yet, wise in the knowledge of high- 
strung natures, he readil^^ understood why the boy had left 
the city, and reproached himself for not having seen him per- 
sonally and dissuaded him from making so hazardous a move. 
The picture that was given of his forlorn appearance haunted 
him all day Sunday, and the only relief he obtained was by 
assuring himself that Don would certainly return to his North 
Square boarding place. But there still remained the fact, as 
indicated in Miss Agincourt’s account, that he avoided his 
former landlady’s daughter; and it was a fact he could not 
explain to his satisfaction. 

The deacon was away on business, and on Monday morn- 
ing the colonel sent a note to Bert’s employers requesting 
them to let him go to the Wickworth store for ten or twenty 
minutes; and by way of explanation, he said that the Donalds 
boy was in trouble without any fault of his own, and that the 
interview was to be in his interest. 

“Has Don returned to your place?” was the first question 
with which the colonel met Bert’s entrance into the counting 
room. 

“No, sir,” was the desponding reply, followed by the won- 
dering Question! “How did you know that he had returned to 
the city?” 

“I learned of it through Miss Agincourt, and I judged from 
what she said that he has been very unfortunate, and has, in 
fact, become destitute. I am anxious about him, for he does 
not deserve to suffer.” 


166 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Immensely pleased with this manifestation of interest on 
the colonel’s part, Bert opened his heart and repeated what 
Nora had said about Don’s appearance. He also tried to 
account for Don’s failure to return to North Square. 

“I think I understand that part of it,” said the colonel 
nervously, “but I cannot understand why he should look so 
seedy in so short a time. Possibly he has pawned his clothing 
to keep from starving. Have you written to him?” 

“Not yet. He left word for me to forward his mail to 
Albany, and I took it for granted that he would not be very 
likely to go to the ofhce here.” 

“A letter dropped in the office will be published in the usual 
list of letters remaining in the office, and he may see the list 
and call for the letter. Write to him and urge him to return 
to your house. Say that a friend will supply him with all 
needed clothing and become responsible for his board until 
he can get on his feet again. Write also that Phillips & 
Sampson being in need of a boy, I have recommended him to 
them, and they will keep the place open for a week or ten days. 
You must also put a ‘personal’ in four of the city papers, 
saying that he will find something to his interest by calling 
upon you at an early date, and here is the money to pay for 
the advertisement. I am much concerned for him, and as 
soon as you hear from him, you must let me know of it, but 
not in a way to bring our doings to the notice of my brother.” 

Bert promised to follow the colonel’s directions to the 
letter, and thanked him gratefully for the interest he took in 
Don’s welfare. At the home dinner that day the colonel was 
canonized among the saints, and Nora’s tongue itched for 
words adequate to his praise. 

Both the deacon and Miss Agincourt had a sneaking par- 
tiality for newspaper ‘personals,’ and it was not long before 


AIR CASTLE DON 


167 


they saw the one relating to Don. Miss Agincourt was the 
first to inform the deacon of Don’s return to the city.. She 
abated neither jot nor tittle in the malignity of her suspicions, 
and the deacon concluded that the shop had been rid of a 
hopeless scapegrace. The ‘personal’ was dismissed from 
notice by assuming that it was merely an attempt on the part 
of Bert’s mother to recover an attic boarder. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A PUZZLKD YOUTHFUI. PII.GRIM. 

While Don was making the journey from Pittsfield to 
Boston in the comfortable car at a rate that almost annihilated 
distance, the jolts of the train, the turns in the road and the 
swift succession of scenes were but parables of the jolts of his 
mind, the turns in his thoughts and the succession of possibil- 
ities that suggested themselves to his feverish imagination. 
The tramp from Albany to Pittsfield, and the night spent in 
the haystack, rankled in his heart fully as much as did the 
night spent in the prison. 

As the train sped on, tramp pilgrims by ones and twos and 
threes were passed almost every other mile, and he shivered 
at the bare idea of being one in the long and scattered pro- 
cession of forlorn tatterdemalions leaking out of nowhere and 
streaming on to an equally indefinite destination. How did 
their lives begin? Where would they end? Was not every 
man’s hand lifted against them? Were they to be the vermin 
of eternity as they were of time? Here was a ‘‘crook in the 
lot” that was past Don’s power to straighten out. How much 
of the crook was due to the faults and misfortunes of the 
pilgrims of the road? Plow much, to the defects of society or 
the indifference of humanity, or the positive neglect prompted 
by the overweening selfishness of the more fortunate? Don 
believed that every human being, tattered or tailor-dressed, 

fi68) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


169 


had an immortal soul, but from his point of view it appeared 
to him as if souls were considered of far less account than the 
buttons people wore upon their clothes. He knew how keenly 
even a ragamuffin like himself could suffer, and he blamed 
himself for not having thought more concerning the sufferings 
of others until the shoe began to pinch his own foot. 

A dim light relieved his dark thoughts. There were the 
roundhouse saints who had been so kind to him. Were there 
not many others like them scattered among the multitudes? 
saints who seldom entered churches, yet ministered to suffer- 
ing as they found opportunity, and that, too, without letting 
their left hand know what their right hand was doing? 

With two dollars in his pocket and rolling wheels beneath 
him bearing him so swiftly toward Boston — with these fur- 
nished to him by his roundhouse benefactors, and with their 
rough, yet sympathetic words lingering in his memory like 
flowers clinging to a beetling cliff, he was in a fair way to take 
reasonable views of even the inequalities of life. 

But suddenly there was a turn, a violent jolt in his thoughts 
and he was thrown from the track altogether, and all that was 
left for him to do was to pick himself from among the splinters 
of the wreck, count his wounds and be his own surgeon to 
them. 

Charity! That was the word that threw him from the rail. 

“I am an object of charity,” he said to himself, ^'and the 
roundhouse men helped me because I was an object of char- 
ity.” The thought made his two dollars burn in his pocket; 
and the measured sound made by the wheels as they struck 
each successive rail spelled charity as plainly as it was spelled 
in the spelling book or dictionary. The noble word, so sug- 
gestive of noble deeds and motives, stuck in his throat so 
obstinately that it almost choked him. 


170 


AIR CASTLE DON 


“I’ll not be an object of charity to anyone, nor for any- 
body,” he said aloud, gritting his teeth and clenching his 
hands, and stiffening up in his whole person. “That is where 
the tramp-world begins. Men become willing to receive char- 
ity, and charity becomes the open hole down which they sink 
into shiftlessness and nothingness. And if people give, it is 
because they want to rid themselves of the things that would 
otherwise remain in sight to annoy them. No more charity 
for me. If I can’t fight my way up. I’ll cast myself down so 
deep that not even an undertaker can find me. Every dollar 
I have received, from the colonel down to the firemen, shall 
be paid back again; and if I can’t get it into the hands of the 
men to whom it belongs. I’ll throw it into a missionary box, 
and send it so far away that there will be small chance of its 
coming back to haunt and humiliate me.” 

So here was Don going back to Boston minus his trunk, 
but with a car load of pride and a car load of suspicion and 
distrust, which might have been of use to him could they have 
been condensed into pocket quantities and carried about as 
self respect and caution. Possibly the pressure to which he 
was to be subjected led, in a measure, to this result in the end. 

When he landed at the station he felt glad to know that he 
was in Boston again, and he said to himself: “Here I’ll stick 
and push my roots down until I can find something to grow 
upon.” 

The passengers who came out of the Boston and Albany 
station were confronted by one of the most squalid and dis- 
reputable precincts of the city. Keenly remembering his own 
battered and disreputable appearance, and fearing that the 
neighborhood would claim him and suck him down into its 
whirlpool depths without any choice of his own, he hurried in 
the direction of the Common. He thought of the attic in the 


AIR CASTLE DON 


171 


widow’s house and longed to go back to the little mother’s 
family. But having resolved to keep clear of all acquaintances 
till he was in a condition to meet them, on equal terms, he 
stifled his feelings and entered the Common and sat down 
upon one of the seats. 

What should he do next? How soon would his blank page 
give place to a title page or to a chapter with something in it 
worth considering? For a long time he remained motionless. 
He studied deeply what should be his next move, but the more 
he thought, the more perplexed he grew. Presently he 
noticed that his garments were still covered with the dust of 
travel ; his hands were grimy, and his skin felt as if the filth of 
a sewer had been flowing over him. The consciousness of dirt 
took possession of him, and his whole nature rose in rebellion 
against this first and worst symptom of degradation. It 
seemed to him as though his outward meanness of appearance 
was corroding his very soul with rust and shabbiness. He 
hurried to the foot of the Public Garden which, at that time 
reached the salt water of the inflowing sea. The sun was 
setting gloriously over the purple hills in the west. Not a 
loiterer nor a bluecoat lingered near. A boat-flat floated 
below the wall ; lowering himself to this he disrobed and flung 
himself into the water. And there, where Commonwealth 
avenue, the grandest avenue in all Massachusetts, has since 
been laid out upon made land; and where magnificent 
churches, art rooms, institutes .and palatial residences have 
since sprung up, the pride of Boston and the wonder of visitors, 
Don revelled mid the sunset hues reflected upon the waters, 
diving, swimming and plunging about as he had been wont 
to do in the waters near his far-off home. And then, after 
sporting like a porpoise, he remembered his chief purpose, and 
seeking the shallows dredged sand from the bottom with 


172 air castle don 

which he scoured his skin till it was as red as the sun itself. 

If the Naiades — the nymphs of the waters — had done their 
duty, they 'vould have put a new suit of clothes on the flat for 
Don’s use when he should return to shore. In recompense 
they might have taken his old garments to use as floor-cloths 
for their kitchens. But perhaps Boston intelligence had ban- 
ished them from its matter-of-fact precincts and had forced 
them to return to Greece or to the classic realms of pure 
mythology. 

Don took his clothes and threshed them on the planks of 
the flat till every dust-atom fled in dismay. When he climbed 
the wall and walked about renewed in every fiber of his being, 
he looked like a young god masquerading in old clothes just 
for the fun of the thing, or for the sake of walking incog and 
taking point-blank peeps at the lower walks of Boston life. 

Now that he had shaken the dust from his garments, 
washed the grime from his body, and thereby thrown off some 
of the weight from his mind and driven out some of the 
specters which had tormented his soul he walked briskly to the 
upper part of the Common where, after obtaining something 
to eat from one of the stands, he sat down to watch the after- 
tea promenaders who flocked togedier on the Tremont Mall in 
great numbers. Presently joining in the promiscuous pro- 
cession and catching the spirit of the happy throng he walked 
and whistled as unconcernedly as though a bed awaited him in 
one of the millionaire mansions of Beacon street. 

As the evening advanced the crowd sifted out through the 
gates of the Common till only belated people making short 
cuts in various directions appeared here and there. Finally 
the sifting left but an occasional straggler to disturb the soli- 
tude. In the tree forks there were houses built for the pet 
squirrels of the city, and among the branches there were fancy 


AIR CASTLE DON 


173 


nests provided for the birds which chose to occupy them — the 
English sparrow had not yet conquered the United States — 
but Don had nowhere to lay his head. Having resolved to 
husband his scant funds for food alone he was dependent upon 
chance for sleeping quarters. 

The day had been a long and exciting one and he was now 
suffering from the inevitable reaction and fatigue. Seeing 
that the mall policeman was beginning to notice his presence, 
he passed down to the old cemetery on the south side of the 
Common, and, looking through the iron railing, he sought 
some place where among the vaults and tombstones, he might 
pass the rest of the night. A large fir tree which hugged the 
ground with its low thick branches invited him to its shelter, 
and he was about to .climb the fence and hide himself among 
the dead, when a watchman appeared and drove the thought 
from his mind. He left the Common and passed into the 
streets, where for awhile his loneliness was relieved by the 
returning theater goers. When these also melted away among 
the shadows he found himself alone near the old Tremont 
Temple. Noticing a narrow passageway in one end of the 
building, and observing that it had no door, and concluding 
that the stairway led toward the top of the structure, he decided 
to venture in, hoping that he might happen upon some corner 
where he could lie down and sleep undisturbed. The few 
feeble jets that were left burning, and which served but to 
make the darkness visible, indicated that they were for the use 
of the watchman of the building. Nevertheless he continued 
to ascend till he reached the uppermost floor. He was now in 
a wide hallway bounded by seemingly disused apartments, and 
cumbered with stowage of a miscellaneous description. He 
noticed a long narrow packing case with a loose upturned 
cover leaning against one of the walls. 


174 


AIR CASTLE DON 


‘‘A bed good enough for a prince!” he said softly to him- 
self, after cautiously examining it, ‘'barring the fact that it 
looks a little like a coffin.” It was partially filled with soft 
packing papers. Don slipped in, lowered the cover, leaving 
an opening sufficient for ventilation, and after lifting grateful 
thoughts heavenward, he fell asleep. 

Tremont Temple was a hive of rooms and offices, with the 
great auditorium, the chief meeting place of The Temple 
Church, and the much-used lecture room and place of gather- 
ing for great public occasions, at the center of the whole. The 
night guardianship of the quaint old granite building — subse- 
quently destroyed by fire — was intrusted to a gray-haired 
negro, a member of the Temple Church, and one of the eccen- 
tric characters of Boston. In his way he was a pedant of 
words, and once a year a complimentary benefit was extended 
to him by the fun-loving youth of the city. The large hall was 
used for this purpose, and notwithstanding the admission was 
put at fifty cents, it was always filled to suffocation. The 
negro usually gave a rambling lecture packed with columns of 
dictionary the pompous delivery of which was accompanied 
with incessant applause or catcalls, and tributes thrown upon 
the stage in the shape of bad eggs, dead rats, cabbages and 
other unsavory accompaniments. In the end the negro was 
the greater gainer; the young men had their annual frolic, and 
the negro his dollars running up into the hundreds; and so, 
as between the negro and the audience, the negro, judging by 
the practical results, was the wiser of the twain. 

He was an extremely pious man and a frequent and accept- 
able exhorter at the Temple Church prayer meetings. His 
bachelor quarters were on the floor where Don had made his 
bed for the night. Having completed the last round of the 
building toward the gray of the morn he was retreating to his 


AIR CASTLE DON 


175 


room when he heard a rustling in the box where Don lay. 

Going toward the sound he said in a low voice to himself: 
“If my olfactories do not deceive me, I hears the sound of a 
mighty progigeous rat in that lemoncholy looking box.” 

Don, who, though still asleep was dreaming that he was 
preaching a sermon before a temple congregation, uttered 
some words that were echoes from his father’s pulpit. 

“De complexion of dose words don’t germinate from the 
inceptions of no quadrupuddle animal,” said the negro, intently 
listening. “And it isn’t no emmernashun from Satan nuther. 
Sounds critically like as though a preacher dun got lost from 
his moorings and sailed plum into the projecting arms of a 
packing case.” 

Advancing, he cautiously lifted the loose cover, just as Don, 
in low sighing tones which seemed to come from afar, said: 
“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” 

“Bless your soul, honey!” exclaimed the black man, forget- 
ting to starch his sentences, and speaking in tones that 
trembled with emotion ; “there is nothing to be afraid of while 
this chile is watching over you. And the Lord himself has 
said to them who trust in him, ‘I will never leave thee, nor 
forsake thee’.” 

The sound of his voice awoke the sleeper. Don opened his 
eyes and seeing the black face peering down upon him, without 
being able in the dimness of the light to discern the sympathy 
expressed thereon, he said in a half pleading voice: “Don’t 
call a policeman; having no other place to go to, I came here 
to sleep for the night, not meaning any harm to anything or 
anybody.” 

“Policeman I” exclaimed the negro. “Pm the policeman of 
this edifice, and the gardeen of all that’s in it. And when I 
happen upon a boy in such a tight box as that, and a preaching 


176 


AIR CASTLE DON 


and a scripturing in his sleep, Fm not going to disconvenience 
him by giving him up to the heathen for his inheritance. If 
you’ll elevate yourself from that box, I’ll take you to my room 
what’s on this floor, and give you a breakfast as expediently 
as possible.” 

Don followed him to his well kept room, where the negro, 
being an excellent cook, soon served a warm and appetizing 
breakfast. Happily for the guest, the host became so intent 
upon framing a succession of his wonderful sentences that he 
forgot to inquire into Don’s private history or future intentions. 

The box-lodger went down the long flight of stairs leading 
to the street laboring under conflicting feelings; he was grate- 
ful to the negro for his kindness, yet humiliated to think that, 
notwithstanding his resolution, he had again become the sub- 
ject of charity, nor did he recover from the sting of his pride 
until he had taken a vigorous walk upon the Common. 

When the hour for the opening of business approached he 
went down to the wharf side of the city, and after applying to 
several stevedores for work, was to his great joy engaged for 
two hours to wash down the upper decks of a ship which, not 
being ready for sea, had not yet shipped her crew. For this 
work he received twenty cents which so encouraged him that 
he went the rounds of the wharves in the hope of finding other 
employment. He continued his search, but unavailingly, till 
some time after noon. 

Boston Common is the airy Bethesda where countless 
weary and woebegone spirits have found mitigation of their 
sorrows and ills. Don again resorted to it for rest and for the 
soothing effects it always produced upon his mind. After sit- 
ting awhile in one of the least frequented portions of the open 
green, where he could get the full benefit of both sun and air, 
he took one of the by paths that led toward the Beacon Mall, 


AIR CASTLE DON 


177 


where the Saturday afternoon promenaders were out in full 
force. The gay procession fascinated him, and he sat down 
upon one of the numerous seats facing the mall to watch the 
rich display of color and beauty. A lovely little miss chasing 
a gaily painted hoop passed so near to him that he turned his 
head to keep her in view as she sped down the mall. When 
he again faced the throngs of people, Miss Agincourt was 
slowly passing with her steel-gray eyes fixed contemptuously 
upon him, and close behind her was Nora, who, when she 
recognized him, made an involuntary movement toward him, 
her face filled with surprise and pity. 

Overwhelmed with shame and confusion, and hardly know- 
ing what he did, he turned his back on her and literally ran 
away. 

“What will they think? What will they say?” he exclaimed 
in great distress, when at a safe distance he halted to recover 
his breath. 

“Am I a coward or a fool — or both?” he reflected after 
having had time to cool, and, for the first time since his 
return, distrusting the consistency of his conduct. 

“I am neither!” he finally concluded; “but I should have 
been both if in this condition — looking like a cornfield scare- 
crow — I had thrown myself upon my friends as another object 
for their charity.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


AN INVOLUNTARY DETKCTIV:^. 

Days passed without any change in Don’s fortune. Hav- 
ing no use for the post office, he kept away from it, and having 
no change to spend upon newspapers, he went without them, 
and consequently Bert’s letter failed to reach him, as did also 
the ‘personal’ written for his benefit. 

He scoured the city for work, but was getting so severely 
scoured himself that his appearance was a constant contra- 
diction to his applications. His shoes barely held together, 
his clothes were little better, and Bob Flanger’s hat, the crown 
of his mendicancy, was so rapidly going to pieces, there was 
small chance of even a fragment of it being left for a memento 
of the roundhouse saints. He still took his salt water baths, 
although no cleanliness of body could atone for the condition 
of his clothes. Of a former Russian age the historian tells us 
that: “The grandees came to court dropping pearls, dia- 
monds — and vermin.” In those days, splendor atoned for 
filth; in these, no degree of cleanliness of the body can atone 
for frayed garments. The world thinks more of clothes than 
it does of skins, and the Lord is about the only one who has 
ho respect for the mere outward appearance. 

Notwithstanding the most heroic economy Don’s dollars 
had become reduced to cents. If he should be reduced to the 
pangs of hunger, what then? One Sunday morning while 
walking down Salem street before the inhabitants were stirring, 

(178) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


179 


he, for the first time, noticed with envy the loaves of brown 
bread and the pots of baked beans which, fresh from the bak- 
ing ovens that had been kept going all night, were left on the 
door steps, just as now the Sunday newspapers are left. 
Something whispered, “If thou be an equal of thy fellows, 
command a pot of beans and a loaf of brown bread to follow 
thee; and help them to obey by carrying them under thine 
arms.’’ He had heard Father Taylor say from the pulpit: 
“If I saw a hungry man stealing bread, my tongue would 
wither before I would cry, ‘Stop, thief!” 

If human beings ask for the bread of work and are given 
the stone of indiflerence ; or, if they ask for the egg of subsist- 
ence, and are given the scorpion of reproach, what wonder if 
they sometimes turn to ravening fiends ready for treasons, 
stratagems and spoils! 

By day Don’s courage rose like the sun, but by night his 
fears multiplied like the stars. The midnight dens of vice, the 
skulking minions of crime and the staggering victims of dissi- 
pation filled him with horror. By day Boston appeared like a 
belle; by night, like a hag. Don did not believe in using pious 
phrases for superstitious incantations, yet from his young soul 
rose a voiceless cry to the Invisible One: “Lead us not into 
temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Time and again he 
recalled the language of the noblest of all human Litanies: 
“From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts and 
assaults of the devil; from thy wrath, and from everlasting 
damnation. Good Lord, deliver us.” 

At eleven o’clock of a night which was to be memorable 
in his life, he found himself in the vicinity of the old North 
Church. He knew its history; the story of the signal lantern, 
and the Ride of Paul Revere to Lexington. Something in its 
plain old front appealed to his confidence, and he tried all the 


180 


AIR CASTLE DON 


entrances in the hope that he might find an opening that would 
admit him. But the building was closed as tight as the water 
lily that shuts itself up at night. 

Then he thought of the old historic Copp’s Hill Burying 
Ground near by, where so many of the colonial fathers and 
revolutionary heroes were buried. He determined to spend 
the night among its graves, for he felt that he would there be 
safe from the interference of the guardians of the night. The 
cemetery, propped up by walls, lifts itself quite high above the 
level of the surrounding streets. Its winding walks and 
heavily shaded grounds, its innumerable graves and diversified 
stones and monuments afforded him just the seclusion he 
needed. There were gas lights sufficient to enable him to see 
the immediate spaces around him. Going to one of the most 
isolated portions of the ground, he sat down upon a flat stone 
which was supported by several pillars. On looking upon the 
face of the stone there was just enough light to enable him to 
read the epitaph of Cotton Mather, the foe of Quakers and the 
burner of witches. He looked under the stone, not for the 
spirit nor for the dust of the stern old puritan, but to see how 
much space there was between the under part of the stone and 
the surface of the earth. 

Here was a lodging for him. Near by there were several 
small piles of green clippings which had been cut by a lawn 
mower. Some of these clippings he put beneath the broad 
stone, and then crawled in and made himself up for a peaceful 
night’s rest. He pulled up his coat collar for a quilt, drew his 
hat over his eyes for a curtain, and put his two hands under 
his head for a pillow. It was a grotesque anticipation of the 
end of all flesh, though the fact did not appeal to his imagin- 
ation at that moment. Peeping from under the edge of his 
hat-rim, he saw a rat moving here and there among the graves, 


AIR CASTLE DON 


181 


and owing to the irregular flickerings of the gas lights the 
trees, shrubbery and monuments appeared to be dancing a 
stately minuet with the restless shadows. For a moment his 
flesh began to creep, but he diverted his fears by thinking: 
“If Cotton Mather had half the virtues that are recorded on 
the stone above me, there is little danger of his dust beneath 
me coming up to interfere with my lodging.” 

For a long while he laid and listened to the diminishing 
sounds of the streets, the play of the wind among the foliage, 
and for the striking of the clock bells of the city. Weariness 
overcoming watchfulness he finally became unconscious. 

About three o’clock he was awakened- by the sound of 
voices immediately over his head. He next became conscious 
of two pairs of legs — one pair in black and the other pair in 
gray — hanging down from the top edge of the stone in thrill- 
ing nearness to his head. He was so excited by the discovery, 
and his heart throbbed so violently he was sure the strangers 
would hear its beats. 

The men began to converse, and the subject of their con- 
versation left no doubt as to the nature of their characters. 

“It’s a mighty good haul,” said a deep voice at the top of 
the black trousers. 

“Yes,” responded the other with an oath, and in an under- 
tone. “But,” he added fiercely, “while I was hooking that 
ticker, and raking in the rings and the jewelry from the bureau 
where the gas was burning, the young woman sat up as 
straight as a clothes pin, and blinked at me like an owl. But 
when I pinted my gun at her and told her that I’d kill her if 
she made a sound, she fell back as limp and as silent as a dish 
cloth. I had the bead on her, and at the first breath of sound 
would have killed her as dead as a door nail.” 

“Well, I shinned through my part of the job as easy as a 


182 


AIK CASTLE DON 


farmer picking his apples,” said the first speaker. ^‘The first 
room I went into had an old duffer and his wife in it, and they 
was both snoring so loud an engine might have gone in there 
whistling and not heard itself. It was there I got them two 
gold tickers and them two pocket books, and them little 
tinklers. On the other side of the hall I found two youngsters 
a-sleeping as accommodative as these dead blokes around in 
these here graves. There I scaled two more tickers, two 
purses, and this here handsome seven-shooter; and they kept 
as still all the time as if the angels were fanning of them.’' 

‘^And the swag we pulled from the silver closet is solid 
silver, as sure as nuts,” remarked his companion, as he clink- 
ingly tested one of the pieces upon the stone. ‘T guess it’ll 
be some time before the chap that’s under this stone’ll have 
another such a layout over him,” and although Don knew that 
the words referred to the dead, they startled him almost as 
much as if they meant him. 

‘Tt’s a blamed good job for beginners,” was the chuckling 
reply. ^'And now let’s count the inside of these pocketbooks; 
they are as fat as the city dads.” 

Although Don knew that he was in great danger, he was 
seized with an irresistible inclination to sneeze, and finding 
that it was impossible for him to suppress the untimely tend- 
ency, he accompanied the explosion with an outcry that was 
so prolonged and curdling the robbers with an exclamation of 
terror fled from the spot leaving their spoils and dropping 
their hats as they ran. 

Here was fresh cause for alarm on Don’s part. The police 
on some of the adjacent streets would certainly be brought to 
the spot by his startling cry, and he would be implicated in 
the robbery. But no one came. It seemed an age from the 
flight of the men to the dawn of the day. He crawled cau- 


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AIR CASTLE DON 


183 


tiously from under the stone and was met by a display of 
wealth that was dazzling to one on the very verge of starvation. 
He promptly and hastily bundled everything into the bag from 
which the robbers had drawn their plunder, and with the 
unwelcome burden on his back and the two forsaken hats in 
his hand he started for the nearest police station. The early 
morning stragglers looked curiously at him as he passed, but 
his greatest dread was lest the police should cross his path and 
find the plunder in his possession before he could clear himself 
by delivering it at the station. 

Marching straight up to the two officers who were behind 
the station desk, engaged in an earnest conversation, he deliv- 
ered the bag into their possession, and while they examined 
the contents he told his story from the time of his entrance into 
the cemetery to the time of his leaving it. 

The bag contained four gold watches, one revolver, several 
pieces of costly jewelry, upwards of three hundred dollars in 
bills, several notes of hand and one large check. 

“This is a very strange story you tell,” said one of the men, 
who proved to be the captain of the precinct, “but fortunately 
for you, circumstances are in your favor, and we have the 
evidence to prove that you have done one of the best detective 
jobs that was ever done in this district. One of our officers 
was nearly run down by two bareheaded fellows who were 
chasing down Salem street as though the whole department 
was at their heels. They are now in the lockup, and, unques- 
tionably, these hats belong to them. One of the men has black 
trousers, and the other gray, as you have said. Could you 
recognize them?” 

“I did not see their faces for the reason I have stated,” said 
Don immensely relieved by the turn of affairs, and by the 
believing words of the officer. “If you could get them to talk 


184 


AIR CASTLE DON 


in my presence without letting them know of my connection 
with the case, I think I should recognize their voices.” 

“Well, we’ll see about that; but I am afraid that )'ou’ll be 
puzzled. While they thought they had a sure thing their 
voices would sound one way, but now that they are jugged, 
they may sound altogether different. The boy that’s getting a 
spanking doesn’t speak as he did while laying in the goodies 
from the pantry. However, we’ll have them brought in and 
see what we can do with these hats.” 

The men had given the names of Cranston and Grimlow, 
and when they were brought in, Don thought that they were as 
villainous a pair as he had seen during the whoH of his own 
nocturnal adventures. 

There was quite a difference in the sizes of the hats, and 
when the men were brought to the desk, the astute officer took 
the larger of the two and with great apparent suavity and sim- 
plicity said to the larger headed criminal: “Here is your hat, 
Mr. Cranston.” With similar politeness, he added: “And 
this smaller one is yours, Mr. Grimlow.” 

Not suspecting the trap laid for them, each man received 
his hat as a matter of course; but they winced when the 
captain, lifting the bag from beneath his desk placed the con- 
tents in full view, saying: “I am afraid that your title to this 
property is not as good as the title you have to your hats, and 
I presume that you did not know that we had a detective under 
that tombstone last night. You doubtless thought that the 
dead had risen to bear witness against you when you heard that 
outcry, when it was only this witness we happened to have 
there,” and he pointed to Don, as he spoke. “He wasn’t in 
uniform last night, as you perceive, but all the same he picked 
up what you left, including your hats, and brought it in. I 
am glad that our officers have taken you in so that you 


AIR CASTLE DON 


185 


might have another opportunity to look upon this plunder. 
It would be good policy to own up to the whole transaction, 
for by so doing you may shorten your time in the 
penitentiary.” 

Before he could go further with the sweating process, and 
before the pair had uttered a word, he was reinforced by five 
persons who entered the station in what might be called ‘a 
state of mind.’ One was a fat, ponderous, well dressed Ger- 
man; another was his wife, equally obese and well dressed; 
and the remaining three consisted of his pretty daughter and 
two grown sons. All were more or less out of breath. 

“Ach! you bolice vas goot for noddins!” exclaimed the 
irate head of the party before he was half way across the floor. 
“You petter puts some betticoats on, vor you lets us pe robbed 
und killed yust as though ve vas nopoddy but poor beoples mit 
no monish to pay our taxes.” 

Here his eye fell upon the spoils displayed upon the cap- 
tain’s desk. The veins on his forehead distended notwith- 
standing the thickness and tightness of his skin as he said: 
“Gott in himmel! Dot vas our broperty! How vas you get 
it so soon?” 

He was interrupted by his daughter who, pointing to one 
of the prisoners angrily said: “That is the man who threat- 
ened to shoot me last night! Oh, you contemptible coward! 
I should like to see you hung higher than Haman!” 

“Very good,” said the captain complacently, and not with- 
out amusement, “Now, if some of you will identify the other 
prisoner, we shall be in a fair way to provide both of them with 
a strong home in the State Hotel.” 

The family were residents of the captain’s precinct and 
W'ere quite well known to him. Mr. Vonberg and his two 
sons were the owners of a prosperously large clothing house 


186 


AIR CASTLE DON 


in the business portion of the city. The head of the family was 
still fuming under the irritation caused by the invasion of his 
house, and he replied to the captain’s question somewhat 
wrathily by saying: “How vas ve identify anypuddy ven ve 
vas schleeping und minding our own pusiness so hard dot ve 
don’t know noddins, except dot von what keeps ervake?” 

“Well,” said the captain, “you can identify this property 
fast enough.” 

“Yas; ve don’t hafe to keep ervak vor dot, und ve vas dake 
it home mit us dis very minute.” 

“We shall have to wait for the end of the prosecution and 
for the order of the court before we can do that, Mr. Vonberg. 
But you need have no anxiety about the safety of it.” 

“I guess dot vas so; but how vas you get it so quick?” 

After sending the prisoners back to their cells, the captain 
began his explanations with the introduction of Don to the 
family. “He was our detective in this business, and you are 
indebted to him for the safety of the property, which he 
brought here shortly before your arrival.” And he went on, 
and mid a running fire of questions and exclamations from 
each member of the family, explained the particulars of the 
case. But none of them could understand how any innocent 
person could be so unfortunate as to be compelled to take 
lodgings in a graveyard before his death; or how, being so 
destitute, he could be honest enough to give up what had, with 
such seeming opportuneness, fallen into his hands. 

The captain was a good judge of human nature, and having 
been greatly prepossessed in Don’s favor, he strenuously 
defended him from all suspicion of dishonesty or insincerity; 
and he ended by saying: “The least you can do for the return 
of your valuables is to make some provision for his immediate 
needs.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


187 


At this moment an early bird of a reporter, searching for 
the early worm of morning news for his evening paper, came 
in, and with all the zeal of an experienced professional pounced 
upon the case as an exceptionally rich piece of local news. He 
probed into details so industriously and deeply that he was 
soon in possession of the main facts of Don’s history from 
the time of his departure from home to the time of his singular 
arrival at the police station. Not a word of the account was 
lost upon either the policemen or the Vonberg family. 
The latter held an animated consultation with one another 
while the reporter was busy with his notes, and the result may 
be given in Mr. Vonberg’s own words. 

“Dot boy,” said he mellowly, “vas schleeps no more mit 
ther deat till he vas deat hisself. Ve dakes him mit us to 
preakvast vare he vas hafe some goot glothes put upon him 
pefore he eats. He vas putty much the same size as mein 
second son, who vas gif him his second suit vrom top to 
pottom, vich vas make him look like a young shentlemen. 
Und ve vas gif him vifty tollars, ven he vas done mit preakvast, 
vor dot goncert he sings unner dot gravestone. Den he schall 
go mit us to our store, vare ve vas gif him a new trunk und 
tree new suits of glothes vor to put in it. Pesides, he schall 
hafe a blace in our store vare he vas get six tollars a veek, till 
he vas get sefen ven he vas mit us six months.” 

And turning to the reporter with assumed cunning, he 
added: “You vas write all dot down mit der pencil erpout 
Vonberg und his sons, so dot it schall make von goot pig 
advertisement vor their pusiness.” 

“I will, for a fact !” exclaimed the reporter, generously glad 
to know that Don’s affairs were taking such a favorable turn. 
“And you may depend upon it,” he added with warmth, “your 
confidence in him is not misplaced. You are not doing a deed 


188 


AIR CASTLE DON 


of charity, but an act of justice, and a good stroke of business 
withal.’^ 

From his inmost soul, Don blessed the reporter for these 
words. In no small degree they helped to melt the ice and 
snow from his bending branches, and to restore the self respect 
that was so rapidly diminishing under the pressure of poverty 
and the accumulation of distrust. The ponderous machinery 
of justice, as seen in the police station; of business, as seen in 
the Vonbergs; of the press, as seen in the reporter, no longer 
seemed a mere thing of steel and steam heartlessly thundering 
mid the agonies of human souls ; the pulsating hand of life was 
upon the lever of the machine, and in that life there was a 
fountain filled with blood drawn from humanity’s veins — a 
touch of nature that made all the world kin. 

And so, the hapless youth who had returned to Boston 
overloaded with pride and distrust, was ready to dump his 
unprofitable baggage at the station, where he had been so prof- 
itably humbled, and at the same time so wonderfully exalted, 
by his growing knowledge of human nature and his increasing 
confidence in his fellow beings. 

The change, however, was so great and sudden, that he 
was as one who walked in dreams. Nor was he fully awak- 
ened and conscious of the substantial reality until the honest 
Vonberg and his cordial family reminded him that he was to 
accompany them home to breakfast. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


UNDER COVER AGAIN. 

Fresh from the bath, and clad in a nobby suit, Don sat at 
the table of his host on equal terms with all the members of the 
honest and cheerful family. No dregs of humiliation were 
mixed with the cup of his satisfaction. The Vonbergs placed 
the burden of obligation upon themselves and not upon him, 
and without affectation treated him with a respect that was 
inspired, not so much by his recovery of their property, nor by 
the change in his appearance, as by his easy self possession and 
intelligent measurement of the whole situation. Their respect 
for him increased their pleasure, for, being generous in their 
dispositions, they rejoiced to know that they were to have a 
part in the improvement of his fortunes. 

At the close of the happy meal, Don said to the parental 
Vonberg: ^‘Now, if you will allow me, I will bundle up my 
old clothes so that they may be given to the first ragman that 
comes along, then I shall have the pleasure of thinking that 
they, in course of time, will be sharers of my change for the 
better by being turned into something useful.” 

“Dey vas pundled alretty, so dot you vas hafe no more 
potter mit dem ; und soon dot ragman vas pe habby because he 
vas get dem vor noddins.” 

‘'But I should like to save the hat, Mr. Vonberg.” 

“Safe dot hat! Mein gracious gootness, Mr. Donalds! 
(189) 


190 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Dot hat vas look like it vas stepped on py an elevant. You 
vas not vare dot ven you conies to mein store, vas you?” 

Don explained its connection with the roundhouse saints, 
and with Bob Flanger in particular. “I intend to keep it for 
a memento,” he said; “that hat once covered the head of as 
big hearted a fellow as ever trod among nature’s noblemen.” 

“Ach! Dot vas very goot, mein son! Und you shall hafe 
all the old hats in dis house, mit mein daughter Dorothy’s 
pesides, if you vas keep dem in remembrance of dose Vonperg 
saints.” 

Dorothy appreciating Don’s motives as well as his humor, 
which was constantly sparkling from his eyes, brought the 
sacred relic, and, after brushing it carefully wrapped it in new 
manilla paper and tied the bundle with a narrow blue ribbon. 
When she handed it to him she said: “Your roundhouse 
saints are deserving of remembrance, but I should like to keep 
the hat myself in remembrance of the young gentleman who 
was the means of bringing to justice the cowardly sneak who 
threatened to shoot me.” 

Don was saved the embarrassment of an answer to Dorothy 
by her father, who said to her: “Veil, mein daughter, you 
vas hafe dis hat vat I now gifs him, ven he vas vare it enough 
und gifs it pack to you.” And he handed Don a hat that 
matched the clothes he had on, adding to what he had already 
said: “If you vas pe a glothing house saint you vas pe shure 
to gif dot hat to Dorothy vor vat you call a memento, ven you 
vas vare it out so you don’t vant it again. She says dot you 
vas a shentleman, und so you vas all der vile dot you vasn’t 
looks like von. Now you looks yust like vat you vas, und 
dot is yust as it should pe; and I vas gladt dot dot is so.” 

When Don reached the store at the foot of Brattle street, 
he was surprised by its magnitude, and the variety of its stock, 


AIR CASTLE DON 


191 


v/hich included almost everything suitable to the exterior 
respectability of male humanity from a shoe lacing up to valise 
and trunk supplies. 

The two sons, Werner and Wilhelm, whose names the par- 
ental Vonberg had borrowed from one of the masterpieces of 
German literature, at once entered upon their business duties, 
while the father personally supervised the fulfillment of the 
promises made to Don in the police station. Besides filling a 
capacious brass-bound trunk with clothes and furnishings suit- 
able to the needs and tastes of a respectable boy, he measured 
Don for a custom made suit of clothing, which was extra to the 
contract. 

“Now vare vas you hafe your paggage sent?” Vonberg 
asked when he had snapped the spring lock of the trunk to its 
close. “Shall it go to dot blace vare you sleeps mit der stone 
last night? Nein! You vas go straight to dot little vidder 
und her son und dells dem dot you vas poard mit dem some 
more. Und ven dot baper vas come dis efening you vas reat 
all about yourself und dose Vonpergs, whose broperty you 
hafe safe, und whose store you hafe entered vor a glerk. The 
express vagon is at der south door to dake you mit your 
paggage, und you vas come here next Montay vor duty.” 

While Don is on his way back to the widow’s family let us 
connect the thread of events. Bert had employed every 
moment that he could spare to discover the hiding place of his 
lost chum, and he had enlisted the sympathies and secured the 
assistance, not only of the colonel, but many others who need 
not be mentioned. 

Thinking that his friend might possibly have shipped on 
board some vessel bound for the vicinity of his home, Bert 
would have written a letter of inquiry to Don’s father had he 
not been prevented by. the maturer wisdom of Mrs. Williams, 


192 


AIR CASTLE DON 


who feared that such a letter might only cause alarm to the 
family. 

It was well that he was restrained, for all the while that 
Don was in the wilderness his parents supposed that he was 
in the book store. The gap in his correspondence was laid to 
the preoccupation of his thoughts by the novelties and excite- 
ments of city life. That he should be too proud and resolute 
to advise with them in case of need or distress was a thing 
they had not thought of, for it not infrequently happens that 
boys and girls are as little understood by their families as if 
they were ducks hatched in a hen’s nest. 

On the very morning that Don’s fortunes were so oppor- 
tunely resurrected from beneath the Copp’s Hill tombstone, 
Bert was pluckily hoping and planning for his restoration to 
their attic comradeship. ‘T’ll not give up yet,” he said to his 
mother after breakfast. “Put me up a pocket lunch so that I 
can spend my noon hour searching for him among the 
machine shops and foundries of the South Side. We went 
over there once to see the Globe Iron Works, and while we 
were going through them Don pulled me up in front of a new 
locomotive and said, that the mechanics who could put 
together such work as that, were doing better and greater work 
than ever old Vulcan did when he made the war shield for 
Achilles. He was so enthusiastic over what he saw that he 
declared that if he had to begin again he would try to get into a 
machine shop even though he had to begin by shovelling ashes 
and sleeping under a machine bench. He may be doing this 
very thing and keeping himself low till he can get himself into 
shape again.” 

And inspired by his hopes, Bert pocketed his lunch and 
tripped away whistling so loudly upon the street that a police- 


AIR CASTLE DON I93 

man with a sensitive ear curtly commanded him to pull in his 
lips. 

But Nora was in no mood for whistling, or the indulgence 
of any of its girlish equivalents. She had conscientiously 
applied all her Bible threats to Miss Agincourt for inter- 
meddling with Don’s business, and had just as scrupulously 
appropriated all the promises to herself for being such a 
champion of his character, but without deriving much comfort 
from either process. 

“Mother,” she said, as soon as Bert had closed the door 
behind him, “I meet that slanderous old maid almost every 
day, and -the more I frown at her, the more she smiles at me. 
What’s the use of the threats and promises, that you say will 
right all things at last, if she’s to keep on smiling and I’m to 
keep on crying? And the worst of it is, I have prayed every 
morning and every night for the Lord to bring Don back to 
us and it doesn’t do any more good than if I were to try 
to raise flowers upon the pavement of the streets. If you 
knew where Don was, and I were to ask you about him, you 
wouldn’t keep me in the dark ; and I think that the Lord ought 
to be as good as my mother. The first thing you know I shall 
be a heretic and an unbeliever, and will be going off to hear 
Theodore Parker, just like other wicked people.” 

“Nora, Nora!” exclaimed her mother greatly shocked to 
hear such unwonted things from her daughter’s lips. “You 
are bordering close upon blasphemy.” 

Alarmed by her mother’s expression of horror, Nora fled 
to her room and endeavored to expiate her sin by praying and 
confessing depths of iniquity she had never been guilty of and 
by forming resolutions she could never perform. While she 
was thus futilely engaged, an express wagon rattled up to the 
front of the house, and immediately afterward there came a 


194 


AIR CASTLE DON 


vigorous pull at the bell. Curiosity overmastering devotion, 
Nora arose from her knees with more haste than solemnity, 
and opened her door just in time to hear her mother say in the 
hall below: 

“Thank God, you are safe, Don!” 

“Yes, safe as a steeple, and back again like a bad penny,” 
was the characteristic reply she heard. 

Rushing headlong down the stairs she gained such an 
impetus by the time she reached the hall, that Don, to prevent 
her from running against something harder than himself, 
caught her in his arms, and then to reward himself for his 
forethought, kissed her warrnly before he released her again. 

“You have been crying, Nora,” he said, as she drew back 
from him like a startled bird. “What has troubled you?” 

Beginning to realize that she had made a revelation of her- 
self in more ways than one her blood tingled from head to feet 
and her face was an aurora of changing colors. Seeing how 
well dressed he was, she plunged into another conflict of 
thought and feeling which made her breath come and go in 
short quick gasps. 

“Oh, Don!” she pitifully exclaimed, “it wasn’t you I saw on 
the Common in that awful state. You didn’t run away from 
me, did you?” 

As she looked steadily into his face for an answer, she 
noticed how wan and worn he looked, and saw that traces of 
his wound still remained upon his cheek. “Yes,” she said, 
“it was you, and you did run away from me. How could you 
do it, when we were all so anxious about you?” 

Beginning to understand how great a cloud he had cast 
over the widow and her children by not confiding in them 
more, he humbly replied: “Give me time and I will explain 
everything, and when I have done that you will not blame me. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


195 


But I cannot explain just now — it is too long a story. And, 
besides, I must attend to business first. Is my attic still 
vacant? Will you t^ke me to board again?” 

“Take you?” said the little mother, smiling through her 
tears. “You do not know how much we have missed you, 
and how we have grieved over you! Bert will be almost 
beside himself when he comes home and finds that you are 
safe and well. You shall have our room, and Nora and I will 
move up into the attic.” 

“Guess not,” said Don, bluntly. “If you knew how I have 
longed to get back to that attic, you wouldn’t talk about pack- 
ing me into any other room and cutting me oil from Bert. I 
shall not wait for your permission, but will take possession as 
if I were lord of the manor.” 

“Come here. Brassy,” he went on, addressing his new and 
glittering trunk, “it is time for you to be climbing up in the 
world.” He made an attempt to life the trunk to his shoulder, 
but in his weakened state he was unequal to the burden and he 
protestingly consented to let Nora and her mother assist him 
in the task. 

“Thank Heaven! Here I am again!” he said after entering 
the room. “But who has been here?” he suddenly asked, after 
noticing that several improvements had been made in the 
arrangements. 

“Nobody but Nora and Bert,” the widow replied. “They 
have always said that you would come back, and so they have 
worked at the room more or less every day to make it more 
attractive for you.” 

“And all the while I have been saying to myself, they will 
soon forget that there was ever such a person as Don 
Donalds,” said Don. 

“Forget!” exclaimed Nora indignantly. “You must have 


196 


AIR CASTLE DON 


strange ideas about friendship. Why didn’t you come to us 
while you had those awful clothes on and while your wound 
needed care? You look thin and worn, and I solemnly 
believe that you have been in the worst kind of trouble. I 
didn’t think that you would be so mean as to stay away from us 
when you needed us rhost. Why didn’t you come before? 

“Well, the fact is, I was hunting for a streak of luck, and as 
I did not find it until last night, I could not very well get here 
before this morning.” 

“Where were you last night?” 

“Under a tombstone, where I found my luck. You may 
read all about it in the Evening Transcript, and when you have 
done that. I’ll not object to any question you may see fit to 
ask.” 

“Under a tombstone — and in the paper!” and Nora caught 
at the words as if they contained some dreadful secret. 

“Wait till Bert comes home to dinner,” pleaded Don, who 
was really too much exhausted to undergo the ordeal of relat- 
ing the harrowing details of his recent experiences without 
first bracing himself up for it. 

“He will not be home to dinner,” said Nora. “He took a 
lunch with him, so that he might search for you among the 
South Boston machine shops and foundries during his noon 
hour. He has searched for you almost every day since I saw 
you on the Common, and has grown thin worrying about you.” 

All along, since his return to the house, Don had been 
keeping a tight rein upon his feelings; now they broke bounds, 
and his self possession forsook him entirely. His head seemed 
to be floating away from him, and he had only strength enough 
left to say brokenly: “Please leave me until I can collect 
myself, for I am worn out.” 

Frightened more by the sight of his tears than by hints of 


AIR CASTLE DON 


197 


his adventures, Nora begged forgiveness, and with her mother 
left the room. They had no sooner gone than Don threv) 
himself upon the bed and fell into a profound slumber which 
lasted till evening. Haunted by vague apprehensions the little 
mother repeatedly went to him but finding him asleep each 
time did not disturb him, while Nora wandered about the house 
impatiently waiting for the evening papers, and for her 
brother, who, she was certain, would dispel the clouds that 
darkened her thoughts. 

Meanwhile, curiosity was rampant at the Covert house. 
When the express wagon reached the widow’s door. Miss 
Agincourt, who was addicted to that uncanny habit of per- 
verted natures, nail-biting, sat at her window gratifying her 
appetite for herself by nibbling at her finger nails with as much 
avidity as if they were bonbons. Ceasing from her feast she 
seized her lorgnette and leveled it upon Don and his new 
trunk. Here was a trial for her faith — for her confident belief 
in Don’s downfall. Impatiently taking a gormandizing bite 
at her right thumbnail, which already resembled a mutilated 
duck-bill, she hurried down stairs to confer with the kindred 
souls of Covert and his wife. 

“That Donalds boy is back again,” she said, petulantly, and 
jerking her head and twisting her lips for emphasis; “and what 
is very strange, he has a big new trunk with him and is more 
stylishly dressed than he ever was before.” 

Assuming an air of the most disinterested solicitude, Mrs. 
Covert replied: “If his fortunes have changed he should have 
come back to us, for I am sure that his brothers would not 
approve of his boarding on the other side of the Square.” 

Nettled to think that her envy was not directly approved. 
Miss Agincourt resorted to insinuation, her favorite weapon, 
saying: ‘Tt is more than likely that his brothers are content 


198 


AIR CASTLE DON 


to let him keep out of sight. While they were here they 
never so much as mentioned his name. I hope that my old 
bachelor uncle has not been wasting any more money upon 
him.” By this last remark she exposed the secret of her hos- 
tility to Don; expecting legacies in the event of the colonel’s 
death, she was morbidly jealous of every one to whom he 
happened to take a fancy. 

“The widow is using her imp of a daughter as a bait for a 
boarder,” said Covert, contemptuously. And thus the whole- 
some trio continued for some time to interpret the widow’s and 
Don’s affairs by the little fire-bug lights they carried under 
their own wings. 


CHAPTER XX. 


A QUEKR TEMPTATION. 

When Bert returned he burst into the house like a besom 
flourishing an evening paper around his head so triumphantly 
it was on the verge of being reduced to tatters. Before he 
could open his mouth to express his torrid excitement, Nora 
unwittingly increased it by telling him that Don was in the 
attic. 

Throwing the paper into his mother’s lap, and without 
stopping to heed her remonstrances against intruding upon 
Don’s slumbers, he ran up the stairs as if his feet were winged 
like those of Mercury and entered the room without ceremony. 
The riot of his joy was suddenly checked when he looked upon 
the face of his chum, it was so changed by the marks his trials 
had left upon it. Seeing that he did not stir, and prompted by 
an ungovernable longing, Bert sat upon the edge of the bed 
and leaning over threw his left arm around Don. 

‘‘Wake up! Wake up, you everlasting good for nothing 
scamp!” he exclaimed with feelings that were quiveringly at 
variance with the letter of his words. 

“Scamp!” The words pierced the sleeper’s dull senses like 
a splinter, and forthwith he was thrown into a long compli- 
cated nightmare of congested misfortunes through which he 
fell into abysmal depths with the velocity of lightning, while 
hoarse echoes accused him of being a lost and irredeemable 
vagabond and ‘scamp.’ 


(199) 


200 


AIR CASTLE DON 


The horror of that descent so stirred his chain-bound facul- 
ties that by a supreme convulsion of energy he seized the edge 
of a projecting crag, and with a long drawn sigh of infinite 
relief climbed back into daylight and a bright world again. 

Seeing Bert’s eyes, within a foot of his own, glimmering 
through unmistakable tears, and finding that his own heart 
was puffing up like an airy bubble ready to vanish into nothing 
again he stretched forth his arms, saying brokenly: “Let’s 
have a hug, old fellow.” 

When that sacred act was over, he arose with something 
of his former springiness, and after plunging his face into cold 
water and drying it again, he, with towel still in hand, stood 
looking at Bert as mutely as though his tongue had melted 
and slipped down his throat. 

“Well!” he finally articulated, “how are you, you awful 
boy?” It was not much of a speech, yet it was enough to let 
the steam on, and after it their tongues went ahead like a pair 
of linked locomotives. 

“If I were able,” Bert began, “I would take hold of you and 
shake you around this room worse than you ever shook that 
Phillips and Sampson boy around that bookstore.” 

“Yes, shake him,” interrupted Nora, bursting into the 
room just in time to hear the shake part of the sentence, “but 
in addition he ought to be scourged forty times save one. 

“Whom would you save the one for?” asked Don, reflecting 
the exultation and joy that shone so brightly in her 
countenance. 

“For myself,” she retorted quickly, and it ought to be as 
heavy as all the rest put together, for allowing myself to tor- 
ment you with my giddy and impertinent questions when you 
were all worn out. But, Oh, Don, after all, I couldp’t help it, 
could I?” 


AIIl CASTLE DON 201 

“I rather think not, seeing that you are a girl,” he replied, 
laughing in spite of his endeavor to keep sober. 

She had the evening paper in her hand; she had rapidly 
read the sympathetic reporter’s succinct yet graphic account of 
Don’s adventures, and was so tossed between conflicting feel- 
ings and conjectures that she became incoherent the moment 
she undertook to express herself. 

Having made several futile . attempts to get at the things 
that lay between the printed lines, she was impatiently inter- 
rupted by her brother, who was himself eager to ask a thous- 
and questions more or less. 

'‘Now, Gipsy,” he said, calling her by the name that he 
himself had fastened upon her, “please put a padlock , upon 
your mouth for a season. A little pitcher like you ought to 
be seen and not heard — at least not until the bigger one has 
had its say. I am going to call Don to a strict account for his 
'sins and transgressions,’ as you are fond of saying when you 
wish to whip either of us around a stump. If there is anything 
left after I get through you can pick it up and handle it as 
you please. 

“But in the first place, let me tell him what a picnic I had 
this afternoon. I was behind the counter feeling as glum as 
an apple paring that has lost its insides, when Mr. Ticknor 
called me into the counting room and handed me the paper 
containing the account of ‘Don Donald’s Resurrection,’ and 
'His Debut in the Role of a Detective.’ Mr. Ticknor had 
become interested in the mystery of your fate, and in my 
attempts to solve it, and when he gave me the paper and told 
me to take time to read the flaming local, his eyes were rather 
watery, though his lips were doing their best to smile. 

“Before I had time to finish the story, the colonel came 
swinging in looking as if he had just closed the Mexican War. 


202 


AIR CASTLE DON 


He, too, had been reading about that tombstone business and 
had brought a paper over for me to read. Finding that I was 
already deep in the story, he and Mr. Ticknor began to talk 
and laugh rejoicingly over your coming to life again. 

'‘The upshot of it was, they packed me down to Brattle 
street to see how much of the story was true. When I got 
there, that old Mr. Vonberg had just got through reading 
about you and himself and was so excited that he deluged me 
with a perfect flood of broken lingo from which, however, I 
was able to make out that everything the reporter wrote was 
true. When he said that you had gone straight to the widow’s 
house after leaving his store, I should have blubbered if I had 
not braced myself up by saying that you was an idiot for not 
having gone there before. He objected strongly to that view 
of your conduct, and nonplussed me by saying that if you had 
not made your bed under a gravestone, his family would not 
have recovered their property, nor would the robbers have 
been brought to justice. Although he has a broken tongue, 
he has a long head, and judging from what he said, he has 
taken a strong fancy to you on your own account. 

“When I got back to the store, Mr. Ticknor was reading 
your adventures to Grace Greenwood and Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, who had happened in during my absence. I made 
my report, and then you ought to have heard the chattering 
they did, and all about you. Mr. Emerson told me to give 
you his sincere compliments, and to say to you for him that 
hereafter you must take for your motto, ‘Nil Desperandum.’ 
And lest I should get the motto wrong end foremost, he 
repeated it and explained it. The others said such a message 
from such a man was as much as I could carry at one time. 
But they wanted me to let you know that they all said, ditto. 

“So there you are, old fellow, with your name in the papers 


AIR CASTLE DON 


203 


in good style, and in the hearts of people who are worth having 
for friends, and next week you will be in Vonberg’s store as 
big as life, taking your first lessons in selling the outward signs 
of respectability. 

“Upon the whole I am almost glad you started for the 
West, though I must still protest that if you had gone as far 
as that awful Chicago, it would have been the total end of 
you. 1 should be willing to go as far as Albany myself if I 
could come out of the big end of the horn as you have.’’ 

“God forbid that you should ever be as I have been!’’ said 
Don fervently, shuddering at the bare recollection of the 
anguish he had endured. 

They were interrupted by the tea bell, and Bert did not 
get an opportunity to reach the lash of his intention till quite 
late in the evening. After tea they were surprised by a call 
from the colonel, who said: “I did not think of coming when 
we sent our compliments from Ticknor’s; but after I got away 
from business I became strongly desirous of seeing what a 
resurrected boy looks like. You do not appear to be quite as 
rugged as you were when I last saw you. Still, you look quite 
substantial for one who has graduated from beneath a grave 
stone.” 

“There is enough of me left to make another start,” said 
Don, “although I must confess that I feel as if I had passed 
through a very grave crisis.” 

“Of course — of course,” the colonel responded, smilingly. 
“And hearing you speak so gravely of making another start 
reminds me to tell you that you have fallen into the hands of 
one of my best friends, and a Teuton of the first water. Mr. 
Vonberg was the major of my regiment; a braver soldier 
never went into battle, and a kinder man never came out of 
one. The sons are chips of the old block, and the firm is one 


204 


AIR CASTLE DON 


of the best in Boston. I am going around to see him this 
evening, and I shall take care that his good impression of you 
suffers nothing from my visit. 

^‘But before I go there I shall call upon my niece, Arabella. 
She swears — if she ever swears at all — ^by the Evening Tran- 
script, from which she has doubtless learned by this time that 
you were not born to be trampled into the mire. If she has 
not learned this much I shall try to open her understanding 
by dropping a little oil upon the hinges of her mind.’’ And 
the peculiar emphasis he threw into his words left the impres- 
sion upon the boys that his lubrications would not be drawn 
from that oil of gladness the prophet speaks of. 

When the colonel entered the Covert house he found his 
niece holding the Transcript in her lap as if it were a pet cat 
or pug, although her countenance was far from being the epi- 
tome of satisfaction that such a burden is supposed to inspire. 
She had read Don’s adventures with decidedly mixed emo- 
tions; indeed, she was trying to navigate herself between 
Scylla and Charybdis; in other words, she was in a strait 
betwixt her animosities and her sympathies. She had nearly 
concluded that it was better to depart — from her animosities, 
and to be — with her sympathies; for, to do her justice, the 
thick powder on her face had not entirely smothered the higher 
sensibilities of her nature. 

^‘Ah, I see that you have been reading about Don,” said 
the colonel, looking at her with such a penetrating glance that 
she instinctively let her eyelids droop. 

''Yes, I have read that extraordinary story, but I doubt its 
truth.” 

"Oh, of course! You doubt everything that runs counter 
to your prejudices. I take especial pleasure in informing you 
that every word of that account is true; the only fault to be 


205 


AIR CASTLE DON 

found with it is that the half has not been told. I have called 
to say to you that if hereafter you interfere with him in any 
way I shall cut you off from my will with a shilling.” 

Arabella was on intimate terms with the Vonbergs, and she 
understood that her uncle’s visit was intended to anticipate 
her in any possible adverse influence she might wield over that 
amiable family. His threat led her to swift repentance, and 
she became precipitately forward to promise all manner of 
good concerning her future relations to Don. 

The colonel went on to the Vonbergs chuckling over the 
success of his missionary efforts. But while he was smoking 
a pipe with his old comrade in arms, and discussing Don’s 
adventures and character, he took good care to inform the 
major of his niece’s failings and to warn him against her 
prejudices. “She was the means of his leaving our store,” he 
said, bitterly, “and the direct cause of all his suffering. The 
old cat has promised not to touch the bird again, but as easy 
promises do not often change a hard nature, I am determined 
that she shall not have another chance to strike her claws into 
him.” 

“If she vas drife him to dot gravestone I vas hafe to thank 
her vor safing our broperty, und den I vas tell her she needn’t 
do dot some more,” said the major with a grave face, yet 
twinkling eyes. 

Dorothy listened to the conversation, and thinking that her 
father’s levity was ill-timed, she heatedly said: “If Arabella 
says anything against that boy here, she will get into hot 
water.” 

“Und dot vill be goot vor her gomblection,” he responded 
while placidly watching a circle of smoke he had just blown 
from his lips. 

“I see that the trial of those burglars is to begin to-morrow 


206 


AIR CASTLE DON 


morning,” said the colonel, ^‘and I suppose you will all have to 
go into court as witnesses. I should like to attend myself, 
for it is likely to prove amusing as well as interesting.” 

The trial was interesting beyond all expectation, and the 
lawyer who defended the robbers indulged in a piece of legal 
jugglery that almost upset the gravity of Judge Russell, who 
was the husband of one of Father Taylor’s daughters, a regular 
attendant at the Mariners’ Church, and who was quite well 
acquainted with Don’s antecedents before he made his unfor- 
tunate trip to Albany. The lawyer’s defence was intended 
chiefly to secure a mitigation of sentence. And the theory of 
his side included the assumption that Don was himself an 
accomplice of the burglars, and that the other two, supposing 
that they heard the approach of a policeman in the cemetery, 
fled incontinently, leaving the plunder with Don, who, being 
the most hardened of the three, was not so easily alarmed. 
It was also assumed that, while escaping with the plunder, he 
saw a policeman apparently following him, and, thereupon to 
secure himself, turned into the station with it, and there related 
an impromptu story accounting for the bag being in his pos- 
session. From the evidence elicited from Don concerning his 
wanderings and night experiences, he tried to build up a claim 
that he was nothing but a vagabond with such a surplus of 
smartness as would naturally make him a precocious criminal 
of the first water. 

Arabella being present, instead of being astounded by this 
ingenious piece of sophistry, really began to hope that it would 
prove true. Don perspired in helpless amazement at this 
aspect of the case, while Bert, who sat at his side, laughed so 
openly that the court officer was compelled to punch him into 
sobriety. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


207 


The defence was so weak it fell at the first breath of the 
prosecutor, and the burglars were sentenced to fifteen years in 
the penitentiary. 

Don had often, in his air castle moods, aspired to appear in 
print. Two pin-feathered poems of his had been published in a 
weekly paper when he was at an age in which most boys are 
content if they are quit of petticoats and pinafores. He was 
now in print to his heart’s content, for as both local and 
general news was scarce, the reporters made the most of all 
the circumstances connected with his case. He was, indeed, 
beginning to feel uneasy in the glare of publicity, and fre- 
quently reminded himself of Peter Piper’s warnings against 
trying to mount the airy ladder which only angels can ascend 
or descend with safety or comfort. 

Bert, with vindictive gusto, replied to his self depreciating 
fears by saying: “But just think what a torment it must be 
for that tallow-faced Deacon Wickworth and that peppermint- 
eating Arabella to see the kind things that have been said of 
you in the city papers. It’s as good as if their chairs had been 
stuck full of big pins. You will go into the Vonberg store 
with flying colors, and that will be worse than fire and brim- 
stone to the small cannibal souls that would have made roast 
meat of you.” 

When Don reported for duty at the store he was handed 
a package of forty-one fat letters, the larger'part of which were 
addressed in feminine handwriting. The package had been 
accumulating ever since the morning following the publica- 
tion of the Copp’s Hill incident. Although greatly surprised 
at this influx of correspondence and curious to know what it 
meant, he would have laid the letters by till after businses 
hours had not the major insisted upon his taking time to give 
them his immediate attention. 


208 


AIR CASTLE DON 


The letters were from anonymous sympathizers who, with 
a solitary exception enclosed money for Don’s benefit. The 
total of these contributions was two hundred and eighty-six 
dollars. Don was profoundly moved, as were the Vonbergs 
also, by this sympathetic display of modest generosity on the 
part of entire strangers. 

After a moment of silence Don surprised the major and his 
sons by saying: “Not one dollar of that money belongs to 
me, and my duty is clear. I shall bank it, and then go straight 
to the papers and give notice that I am not in need of assist- 
ance, and shall request my unknown friends to recall their gifts. 
The very sight of that money makes me feel as if I were an 
imposter preying upon people whose sympathies have run 
away with their judgments.” 

The major and the younger son remonstrated against his 
plan as being equivocal in spirit and impracticable for execu- 
tion. The elder son thought the point of honor well taken and 
approved Don’s determination. Stacking the letters upon the 
desk and stuffing the money in his pockets, Don departed 
upon his errand. 

“Veil, py Jubitor, und all the rest of dose heathen vellers!” 
exclaimed the major, explosively, as he disappeared, “dot poy’s 
brincibles vas like chilled steel vat you can neither bend nor 
break. Vat you say, mein sons, if ve vas make him cashier at 
ten dollars a veek instead of sefen? My colonel say mit me 
yesterday dot he vas goot at writing und goot at figures und 
goot at eferything.” 

The cashiership had been vacant for several weeks, and the 
sons approved of their father’s suggestion with enthusiasm. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


A TKI<I.ING illustration. 

There is enough water under the great Sahara Desert to 
make it blossom as the rose, and there is enough benevolence 
underneath the howling wilderness of society to work the same 
wonders for itself should it ever be sufficiently tapped. From 
this vast latent fountainhead have come forth the streams which 
have ameliorated the horrors of war, of famine, of plagues and 
the desolations that have been wrought by hurricanes, con- 
flagrations and all the other untoward forces that devastate the 
earth. 

In a small way Don had tapped this hidden fountain of 
benevolence, and once started it was not easy to stop. The 
notice to his unknown friends was, as he had been forewarned 
by the newspaper men, futile so far as the recalling of their 
gifts was concerned. And not only so, but the recent trial, 
together with the comments of the friendly newspaper men, so 
augmented the stream of gifts that the sum mentioned in the 
previous chapter was more than doubled. 

“You vas hafe to vait till it stops raining,'’ said the major, 
“pefore you can sleep out toors again or hafe any more afflic- 
tions. You vas hafe a mind of your own, und the bublic vas 
hafe some mind of its own as veil as you vas.” 

And this conviction was triumphantly expressed by Bert 
himself, who had vainly tried to argue and to ridicule Don out 
of what he called his country notions of honor and honesty. 

(209) 


210 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Some of the later gifts were sent anonymously through the 
offices of the papers, and the fact was mentioned in their col- 
umns. This provoked a correspondent to intimate that Don 
was taking advantage of the public, and the insinuation so 
rankled in his mind he could scarcely eat or sleep. 

Something in the correspondent’s letter excited the 
colonel’s suspicion that Arabella had written it, but on being 
questioned she strenuously denied having any knowledge of 
its authorship. Not until he obtained the original copy and 
confronted her with her own signature did she acknowledge 
her transgression. Having a West Pointer’s ideas of truth 
and honor, he washed his hands of all further dealings with 
her and left her to the conviction that she had eflectually cut 
off the limb in which she had hoped to build her old-age nest. 
It was in vain that she tried to regain his favor by publishing 
a second letter confessing that she was unjust in the first. He 
was implacable. 

The annoyance Don suffered from her malice was swal- 
lowed up by a paragraph he happened to see in one of the 
morning papers. It was a brief chronicle of the fact that Bob 
Flanger, the engineer, and Jake Cullum, his fireman, had both 
been killed in a railway collision. The death of these two 
roundhouse saints who had been so signally kind to him in his 
distress affected him deeply, and practically as well. 

Wiring to Albany, he found that he could reach there in 
time for the funeral of the two men. 

“Can I go?” he asked of the major, after informing him of 
all the circumstances. 

“Go, und Gott pless you, mein poy,” said the major, tear- 
fully appreciating the spirit that animated his young cashier. 

Getting off at Greenbush, the scene of his first misfortune, 
he went directly to the roundhouse, where he was speedily 


AIR CASTLE DON 


211 


recognized by two men who had ministered to his hunger 
while he lay upon the wheelbarrow tattered and bruised. 

'Toor Bob and Jake have given their last whistle and rung 
their last bell,” said one of the men, brushing his eyes with the 
sleeve of his blue check shirt. 

“Yes, I know it; and I have come to attend their funeral,” 
Don replied. “I have got Bob’s hat yet,” he added, recogniz- 
ing one of the men as the one who had jestingly ridiculed him 
for saying that he would keep the hat as a memento of the 
engineer. 

Both men had believed in Don’s respectability even when 
he looked so battered and forlorn, and they were not partic- 
ularly surprised at his reappearing at the roundhouse in the 
garb of a young gentleman. But when they learned that he 
had come all the way from Boston to honor the memory of the 
dead men, and that be really kept Bob’s hat as a precious 
souvenir of the engineer, Sam Langley, the elder of the two, 
came up to him and, putting a hand on each shoulder, and 
looking him in the face, said: “Young fellow, you make me 
believe in human nature. And that is -saying a great deal for 
one who has knocked about the world for more than fifty years. 
Let’s have another shake, for there is no telling how soon I 
shall have to follow Bob and Jake.” And he shook Don’s 
hand with a heartiness that made it ache. 

“You ought to be stuck up in a pulpit for a headlight or a 
steamboiler — I scarcely know which,” exclaimed Lem Dudley, 
the younger of the two men, who was also a freight engineer, 
stroking Don’s right shoulder caressingly with a hand that 
looked as if it could knock down an ox. 

“Did Bob and Jake leave families?” Don asked, in pur- 
suance of one object he had in view in returning to Albany. 

“Why, of course,” replied Langley; “did you ever know 


212 


AIR CASTLE DON 


a railroad man that was worth his salt that didn’t have a 
family? Bob leaves a wife and four little tots; and Jake had a 
wife and five children, one of whom is as blind as a bat. And 
the worst of it is, neither of them were very forehanded. The 
men along the road are making up a subscription to be divided 
between the two families; and when it comes to that sort of 
business they don’t do things by halves, I can assure you.” 

'‘No, I suppose not,” said Don, warmly. “Will you let 
me put my name on the list?” 

“Certainly, if you have got anything to spare,” Langley 
responded gladly, pulling out a subscription list which was 
already quite numerously signed. 

Don took the paper and after affixing his name hesitated 
some moments before he filled in the amount, for it was neces- 
sary that reflection should go before decision. He had pre- 
viously resolved that the money which had come to him from 
his unknown correspondents should be used for the benefit of 
others, and his chief object in visiting Albany was to determine 
whether or no some of it might not be advantageously applied 
to the families of the dead engineer and his fireman. The 
details of the accident by which they lost their lives showed 
that they had sacrificed themselves for the safety of a passenger 
train. 

Observing his hesitation, Langley said: “You needn’t 
make it very hard on yourself, you know; every little helps.” 

“I was trying to decide how much, and not how little I 
could give,” Don replied. I think I have decided upon the 
right thing, and will put down one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars for Bob’s family, and the same amount for Jake’s.” 
And he filled in these figures, adding: “Although I put this 
on the paper, I shall carry the money to the families myself 


AIR CASTLE DON 


213 

before the funeral takes place, for it may comfort them to 
know that Providence has not forsaken them.” 

And before the men could recover from their astonishment 
he told them his story as briefly as he could, and explained the 
motive of his action. “And now, if you will tell me how to find 
the families I will get this thing off my mind as soon as 
possible.” 

“If we don’t go with you as guides they will be apt to think 
that you need a guardian,” said Langley, who was more than 
half inclined to think that the whole transaction would turn out 
as an illusion. 

“If you can spare the time, so much the better; you will 
save me the trouble of making too many explanations.” 

They went with him, and the details of what followed may 
be safely left with the reader’s imagination. After seeing and 
ministering to the families, Don felt as if life had a new mean- 
ing and magnitude. Responsibility and duty became new 
words to him, and he became convinced that even a boy might 
be of some use to the world. 

Before he left Greenbush he erected a small drinking foun- 
tain in the roundhouse for the benefit of the railway men. It 
bore the inscription : “Sacred to the Memory of Robert 
Flanger and Jacob Cullum. Erected by a Boy Who Knew 
Them as Roundhouse Saints and Railway Heroes.” 

The Reverend John Paul Lovejoy, D. D., still blessed 
Albany with his stately presence and brilliant light. He was 
an ‘up to date’ preacher with a strong partiality for newspaper 
illustrations. Certain old-fashioned people intimated that he 
knew far more about the newspapers than he did about the 
Bible, and that his preaching was inspired more by the spirit 
of the age than it was by the Spirit of The Almighty. They 


214 


AIR CASTLE DON 


said that his morning paper always took precedence of his 
morning prayers. 

All acknowledged, however, that he had a great aptitude 
for ‘telling illustrations.^ To do him justice, he seldom read a 
paper without discovering fresh material for pulpit ammuni- 
tion. Opening his journalistic purveyor one morning he was 
immediately attracted to a column or more of matter which 
was big-headed with the words, “Pathetic Precocity of a 
Juvenile Philanthropist.’^ 

The Roundhouse Fountain had been discovered by the 
press. By interviewing the roundhouse men and other people 
to whom the roundhouse men referred them, the reporters 
acquired a clear outline of Don’s doings and experiences from 
the time of his first appearance in Albany up to his second, 
and his benefactions to the relicts of the late Robert Flanger 
and Jacob Cullum. Some things, however, escaped their pur- 
suit, and among them was Don’s visit to the popular Doctor 
of Divinity. 

Doctor Lovejoy became so engrossed in the reporters’ dis- 
coveries that tears clouded his expressive grey eyes and ran 
down to the point of his more expressive Roman nose. “What 
a Telling Illustration that will make!” he exclaimed with the 
keen discernment of a professional sermon-architect. He cut 
it out with his polished clippers and triumphantly consigned it 
to a mahogany boxlet marked, “Telling Illustrations.” Here 
was an auspicious inspiration for his next Sunday morning 
sermon. A suitable text was not far to find. To the ‘illustra- 
tion’ he pinned the words: “Cast thy bread upon the waters, 
for thou shalt find it after many days.” With such a luminous 
text pinned to such a voluminous illustration he was in a fair 
way of adding to the fame of his illustrious name. 

Not content with this beginning, he crossed the river to 


AIR CASTLE DON 


215 


Greenbush, interviewed the roundhouse men, as he contem- 
plated the memorial fountain, and from them went to Mrs. 
Flanger and Mrs. Cullum for further verification of the news- 
paper account. The more he investigated, the faster his ser- 
mon grew. It sprang up like the magic tree of the Hindoo 
magician. 

When he preached that sermon, his fashionable congrega- 
tion became a fountain of tears; although, truth to tell, they 
were moved, not so much by the inspirations of the text, as 
by the ‘telling illustration’, of which the text was but a prelude 
or a jug-handle. It was the almost unanimous conviction of 
the audience that for eloquence and pathos the sermon eclipsed 
all previous efforts of the renowned pastor. 

The Monday morning press contained a verbatim report of 
the doctor’s masterpiece. Although severely fatigued by the 
strain of the preceding day, the doctor sat down in his luxur- 
ious study and read his own sermon from beginning to end. 
He cut it out and pasted it in a vellum scrapbook already 
plethorically full of other sermons preserved in a similar 
manner. 

Having done this with a glow of satisfaction, he turned to 
open his morning mail. The first letter he took up bore the 
Boston office mark. There had been intimation of his being 
called to fill the pulpit of one of the largest churches in The 
Athens of America. This was a thick letter. What if it should 
contain the coveted call! 

Daintily clipping one end of the envelope he reversed it and 
shook the contents upon the elegant study table. The first 
arrival from the interior was a silver ten-cent piece; the next, 
several newspaper clippings; and last, came the letter. 
Puzzling as was the silver, he put it in his vest-pocket; and 
eager as was his curiosity concerning the sender of the missive. 


216 


AIR CASTLE DON 


his attention was riveted by the appearance of the name, Don 
Donalds, in the scrap that lay face toward him. He thereupon 
read the scraps first, and was delighted to find abundant con- 
firmation of the sketch he had given of the character of The 
Juvenile Philanthropist the day before. 

He next looked at the signature of the letter. Bertrand J. 
Williams. He knew of no one by that name. He turned to 
the contents of the letter for enlightenment, and — was 
enlightened. 

When, after his return from the sojourn in the wilderness, 
Don related to Bert his experience with the Reverend John 
Paul Lovejoy, D. D., there was a violent storm of juvenile 
indignation which was slow to abate. And when Don left 
Boston to make his second visit to Albany, Bert bethought 
himself of writing a letter to the Albany clergyman. This 
letter was so ingeniously put together that the writer must 
have perspired over it as if he were sitting on a steam boiler. 
He enclosed the scraps as evidence of Don’s standing in 
Boston. He informed the doctor of Don’s object in visiting 
Albany, and described his previous visit, and scathed the rever^ 
end gentleman for slamming his door in the face of an unfor- 
tunate who was far better as a boy than the preacher was as a. 
man. As a measure of his manhood and a reminder of the ten 
cents so insultingly offered to Don, and as a compensation for 
the energy he had expended in slamming the door he enclosed 
the ten cents, with the request that he should bore a hole in it 
and wear it around his neck as a commemorative medal. 

Surprised as the doctor was to discover that the boy he had 
treated with such scant courtesy and grace had turned out to 
be the Juvenile Philanthropist upon whom he had expended 
his tropical eloquence, he was indignant beyond endurance. 
Indignant to think that anyone, even in classic Boston, should 


AIll CASTLE DON 


217 


write to him, The Reverend John Paul Lovejoy, D. D., in such 
pointedly incriminating and contemptuous terms. And the 
Ten Cents! Was ever such an insult offered to a Doctor of 
Divinity before! 

Who was this presumptuous Bertrand J. Williams? He 
studied the letter. The chirography and construction were 
unimpeachable. There was no trace of juvenility in it, 
although the impertinence of it indicated someone who was 
the very impersonation of “sassiness.” 

There was one comfort; the revelations of the letter could 
be kept from the Albany public. The radiance of his telling 
sermon and its ‘Telling Illustration” should not be dimmed by 
the discovery of his shabby treatment of the boy whom he had 
lauded to the skies with such pathetic and effective fervor. 

Alas! for all human calculations and security. Fame has 
its penalties and dangers. , The great sermon was reprinted in 
the Boston papers. And Bert wrote a note to the press expos- 
ing the difference between the eloquent doctor’s preaching and 
practice. The shuttle wove its thread between Boston and 
Albany. The note was reproduced in the Albany press, and 
finally it was announced that the doctor, having a chronic sore 
throat, would be obliged to seek another climate. 

The reporter of the Transcript, who was the first to give 
sympathetic publicity to Don’s adventures, and who continued 
to be his firm friend, caustically wrote, in somewhat labored 
classic terms: “The doctor leaves Albany with the hot shirt 
of Nessus on his back and the avenging feet of Nemesis at his 
heels.” 

Don knew nothing of what Bert was doing until it was too 
late to remonstrate. All he could say then was: “You are an 
awful boy, Bert, but I did not think that you could be so 
wicked.” 


218 


AIR CASTLE DON 


It should be said before closing this chapter that the doctor 
purchased a cigar with Bert’s ten cents and meditated upon the 
mutability of human events while blowing the smoke from his 
eloquent lips. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


PICKING UP A PROT:eGK. 

Nora was an interrogation point. When she could not 
answer herself, she carried her questions to the attic for solu- 
tion. “Who are The Boston Originals?’’ she asked one even- 
ing with wrinkled brow. 

“You must be one of them, for that is certainly an original 
inquiry,” said Don. “Tell us what you mean.” 

“I was going down Hanover street this afternoon, and at 
1 14 I saw printed in big letters at the entrance of the narrow 
stairway, ‘The Boston Originals. Meeting Held Every Sun- 
day Evening on The Top Floor.’ I have heard of a good 
many denominations, but I never heard of that one before.” 

“You know as much about them as I do,” said Bert, “and I 
supposed that I was as well acquainted with the oddities of 
Boston as any one could be, seeing that I am to the manor 
born.” 

“That is such an odd title, we shall have to go there next 
Sunday night and find out what it means,” remarked Don, 
musingly. 

“Oh, for mercy’s sake, don’t go! It might be worse than 
going to hear Theodore Parker,” exclaimed Nora, taking 
alarm. 

“If the Originals should prove to be as good as he, it would 
certainly pay us to go,” Bert retorted, sturdily. “What do you 
say, Don?” 


(219) 


220 


AIR CASTLE DON 


‘^Originality is a scarce article; it is something we should 
search for. Besides, Nora’s curiosity is certainly justifiable, 
and we will go there in the spirit of investigation so that we 
may be able to gratify her with some degree of intelligence.” 

“If you do go, it shall not be on my account,” said Nora, 
firmly. “You shall not pack the blame of that meeting on my 
shoulders as you did in the case of the Faneuil Hall meeting, to 
which I sent you. I am not playing Mother Eve this time. If 
you find any forbidden fruit there, you will have to blame your* 
selves for it.” 

“We will assume all the re-spon-si-bil-i-ty ourselves,” Bert 
said with grave pomposity. 

On going to the hall the boys discovered that they were in 
Adullam’s Cave — an assembly of social, political and religious 
malcontents of both sexes, who were set against everything 
from the rising to the setting of the sun. The men wore locks 
that hung down to their shoulders, and the women, hair that 
was cropped close to their skulls. The men looked as lean 
and hungry as Cassius, and the women as leathery and big- 
boned as furies. The atmosphere was pervaded with the odors 
of unwashed bodies, old clothes, beer, bologna and tobacco. 
Each one looked at his fellow as if questioning his right to 
existence. 

They were presided over by the notorious Leroy Sunder- 
land, an apostate preacher and celebrated mesmerist, whose 
life, it was alleged, was a flat contradiction of the Ten Com- 
mandments. After leading in singing, which sounded like the 
wailings of lost spirits, and in a prayer that addressed nobody 
and asked for everything that would tend to turn society topsy- 
turvy, he made a short address which clearly showed that he 
was a professional Ishmaelite, whose hand was against every- 


AIR CASTLE DON 


221 


body and who rejoiced in having- everybody’s hand turned 
against him. 

“Well,” whispered Don to Bert, “I guess we have put our 
foot into it deep this time.” 

“Yes,” responded Bert with a grimace, “and it will be 
deeper still when we make our report to that Nora of ours.” 

After Sunderland’s speech the meeting was “thrown open” 
to anyone who wished to speak. This was the signal for a 
fusillade of sharpshooting against everything in sight and out 
of sight. 

“Has anything hit you yet?” asked Don of Bert, after list- 
ening in a dazed way to the tirades of the speakers. 

“Lots!” said Bert sententiously. 

Presently a man, who was evidently a foreigner, began to 
anathematize the United States and everything connected with 
it. Others followed in the same vein. 

This is getting altogether too hot for me,” whispered Don, 
indignantly. “If they keep this up you will have to hold me 
down.” 

“Blaze away!” exclaimed Bert excitedly. “It seems to be 
a free-for-all fight. I’ll help push you up if you’ll only pitch in. 
Men who talk that way about this country ought to be flung 
out of it.” 

There was a lull. Don drew his feet under him and started 
to rise, but another was before him. 

The new speaker was a man of foreign accent with a schol- 
arly command of the English language. His dark, curly hair 
was slightly streaked with gray, but his heavy moustache and 
side whiskers were as black as jet. He was seedily dressed, 
yet there was that in his student-like face and refined bearing 
that inspired respect. His dark eyes were large and beautiful, 
His tones were clear and cultivated, 


222 


AIR CASTLE DON 


He began by saying that he was an exile from Hungary, 
where he had once possessed both wealth and influence, 
though now he was without a roof to his head or the means of 
purchasing the common necessities of life. In his wanderings 
on the street he had seen the sign at the foot of the stairs and 
had entered the meeting as a means of resting his weary feet. 
Yet, unfortunate as he was, he rejoiced in being in the United 
States, the ideal of his dreams and the queen of the nations of 
the earth. He pictured the woeful condition of Hungary and 
Poland under the feet of the oppressors and contrasted it with 
the happy state of things in this country. 

Waxing warm and growing eloquent as he proceeded, he 
began a series of polished, yet startling invectives and denun- 
ciations against the speakers who had spoken ill of their coun- 
try, and closed by declaring that they were so unworthy of it 
they ought to be driven from it. 

Don and Bert were so excited that they clapped their hands 
and pounded the floor with their feet until they were exhausted. 
Their example proved contagious to others who were in the 
hall, and the confusion was so great that Sunderland closed the 
meeting. 

Don and Bert held a hurried and earnest consultation, and 
with results that followed immediately. They intercepted the 
stranger as he was about to leave the hall, and taking him aside, 
invited him to go home with them. 

Looking keenly into the two frank faces awaiting his 
answer, he said in subdued, almost quivering tones: am a 

stranger to you, and you are too young to invite me to your 
home without first taking counsel of those who usually deter- 
mine matters of this kind. Nevertheless, I thank you with all 
my heart.” 

“You are in hard luck, and I know what that is by experi- 


AIR CASTLE DON 


223 


ence. We believe that you are a gentleman notwithstanding 
the unfortunate situation you hinted at in your very eloquent 
address, and it will be to your advantage to go with us.” And 
Don spoke so sympathizingly that his words went straight to 
the heart of his listener. 

Better accept,” said Bert bluntly, ‘‘for we are in earnest. 
In one sense, I am the master of the house to which you are 
invited, and my mother and sister, who are the only ones to 
consult, if such a thing needed to be done, will heartily approve 
of any invitation I see fit to extend to anyone. We are plain 
common people, who use words to express what we mean.” 

“I will go with you; and more gladly and thankfully than I 
can tell,” said the stranger, and with so much relief depicted in 
his face, that both boys were more than ever convinced that 
they had run no risks in giving such an impromptu invitation 
to one they had never seen before. 

“My name is Conrad Krasinski,” he continued as soon as 
they had reached the street, “and I will tell you more about 
myself when I am better able to confirm my representations.” 

The boys gave their own names and impulsively assured 
him that they were not looking for vouchers of his respecta- 
bility, for that was sufficiently evidenced by the speech he had 
made in the hall, and by his looks and manners. 

Two of the boarders had gone away Saturday night, leav- 
ing a comfortable room vacant, and in the hasty consultation 
held with Bert, Don had said: “You have a vacant room, and 
I have over half of that anonymous fund still in the bank. Put 
him in there and I will pay his board out of that fund till some- 
thing turns up for him. Or better still, I will pretend to loan 
him seventy-five dollars, so that he can pay his board himself 
and leave your mother and Nora in ignorance of his destitu- 
tion. That will put him on a better footing in his own estima- 


224 


AIR CASTLE DON 


tion, and will encourage him to do the best he can for himself. 
I will tell him of the arrangement for secrecy so far as we are 
concerned, and charge him not to give us away.” 

And in accordance with this plan Krasinski was intro- 
duced to the household as a new boarder, and conducted to his 
room by the boys, where they left him with best wishes for a 
good night’s rest and more cheerful outlooks for his future 
prospects. 

“Where did you pick up that distinguished foreign-looking 
gentleman?” asked Nora, when they returned to the sitting 
room to report to their little censor and mentor. 

“At The Boston Originals,” said Bert, promptly. “He was 
the chief speaker; and a glorious speech it was, too, in favor of 
our country. We got acquainted with him, and finding that 
he was seeking for a boarding place, we brought him home 
with us, leaving him to send for his baggage when it would be 
more convenient for him. We will report further some other 
time.” And taking Don by the arm, he led him off to the attic. 

“You are an awful boy,” said Don laughing, to think how 
expertly Bert had extricated them from an embarrassing 
position. 

In the morning they arose early, and hearing Krasinski 
stirring in his room, they sought entrance to explain their 
plans, and to settle his footing in the house. 

Overwhelmed by their kindness he broke his reserve, say- 
ing: “I was professor of languages in The Budapest Univer- 
sity, and a member of the Hungarian House of Deputies. But 
having been an active co-worker with Louis Kossuth in the 
attempt to free the Hungarian people, I was obliged to flee 
from the country. I have been here but a short time. Being 
disappointed in my remittances, I was turned out of my board- 
ing house, and my baggage was retained for my indebtedness, 











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AIR CASTLE DON 


225 


With the money you offer to advance I can pay the small 
amount due and reclaim my baggage and papers. In time I 
hope to obtain a private class in the languages and make my 
own way again. Your kindness has saved me from the horror 
of walking the streets at night, and made it possible for me to 
begin anew. I can assure you that you will lose nothing by 
your generosity to me.” 

This revelation stunned the boys. But regaining theirself- 
possession, they soon discovered that they experienced no dif- 
ficulty in maintaining easy terms with the professor. Don said 
he would redeem the baggage at noon and furnish him with 
seventy-five dollars at the same time. And he would also 
claim the honor of being his first private pupil in Latin and 
Greek. Bert said he would be the second; and if the professor 
could teach French, his sister Nora should be the third pupil. 

The professor said he could teach both French and German 
in addition to the classical languages, and he was so relieved by 
the sudden change from killing care to comparative comfort 
that his face was literally transfigured. And when he accom- 
panied the boys to breakfast Nora thought he was the most 
fascinating and entertaining gentleman she had ever seen. 
Nor was her pleasure diminished when Bert informed her that 
she was to take French lessons of him. The little mother her- 
self was captivated by his grace and breeding, and congratu- 
lated herself on having the good fortune to secure such a 
boarder. 

When the boys left the house for their daily duties, Nora 
kissed Bert, and said: “If Professor Krasinski is the kind of 
company they keep at The Boston Originals, you may go there 
again.” She noticed that her brother shrugged his shoulders 
briskly, and thinking that her kiss was not welcome, she ran 
into the house in a pout, forgetting even to say her usual morn- 


226 


AIR CASTLE DON 


ing good bye to Don, an omission which clouded her whole 
forenoon. 

'‘Now, Bert,” said Don, when they were clear of the house, 
"this affair must be kept out of the papers, for the professor 
would not like to appear as the protege of such a pair of juven- 
ile imps as we are.” 

"If the public knew that you had taken him under your 
wings, and that you were spending that trust money, as you 
call it, for his benefit, it would be the making of him,” was the 
quick and earnest reply. 

"Solemnly promise me that you will do all you can to keep 
this cat in the bag, or Fll cut your acquaintance.” 

"I solemnly promise, so help me. But what's the use? 
We may tie our end of the bag as tightly as we please — that 
won't prevent the cat from bursting out at the other end. The 
reporters are lorgnetting you as closely as that Arabella 
Powderface is lorgnetting our house, and so long as the game 
is in sight, they are not going to give up the chase for news.” 

"Well, if we two keep our mouths sealed, they’ll be baffled.” 

"What if the professor should open his?” 

"He is a gentleman, and gentlemen do not pin their private 
affairs to their sleeves.” 

The professor was a gentleman! He showed it in every- 
thing he did or said, notwithstanding he was a bachelor. He 
was a rare teacher, and his three pupils became so enthusiastic 
under his instructions that others were soon added to their 
number. 

Not long after the discovery of the professor by the two 
boys, Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, for whose blood 
the Austrians were thirsting, arrived in this country. As his 
deliverance from his enemies was effected through the inter- 
vention of the United States, he was greeted by great throngs 


AIR CASTLE DON 


227 


wherever he went. On his approaching visit to Boston he was 
tendered a review of the troops on the Common and the com- 
pliment of a public meeting in Faneuil Hall. When he arrived 
the professor was in a state of exalted excitement. The day 
was set apart as a city holiday. Quite early in the morning he 
appeared in the attic where he was in the habit of visiting as if 
he were but a boy himself, and invited them to accompany him 
to the Revere House, whither he was going to make a call 
upon his old chief and friend, Louis Kossuth. 

‘T shall be most happy to introduce you to him, and as my 
best friends, too,” he said, with all the confidence of a man who 
was sure of the ground he stood upon. 

When they arrived at the hotel, hundreds were already 
seeking access to the rooms of the great magyar. But the pro- 
fessor’s card secured access in precedence of all. The moment 
he entered the room, Kossuth fell upon his neck, embraced him 
and kissed him again and again. And both men were so over- 
whelmed with emotion that it was sometime before they could 
speak. The boys felt as if they were intruding upon the holy 
of holies of friendship. 

The professor took them by the hand and said: ‘'Louis I 
must introduce to you these two boys; they saved me from 
death by starvation, and have been the brightest joys I have 
had since my arrival in this great country.” And while Kos- 
suth received them with effusive cordiality, the professor 
briefly explained what they had done for him. Kossuth pat- 
ted them on the shoulder, and to their overwhelming embar- 
rassment informed them that they had been- kind to one of 
Hungary’s greatest and purest men, and to one of Europe’s 
greatest linguists and scholars. He invited them to his Fan- 
ueil Hall meeting and gave them tickets — which were selling 
high — to secure their entrance. 


228 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Feeling that these bosom friends would have much to say 
to each other and in their own language, the boys excused 
themselves and departed in a state of mind bordering on 
estasy. On their return home they almost frightened Nora 
and her mother with their revelations and excitement. 

The ovation given to Kossuth was one of the greatest ever 
given to any man in the United States. People crowded after 
him in the streets; the review was attended by countless multi- 
tudes, and Faneuil Hall was densly filled with people, who 
came to hear him rehearse the story of the rise and fall of the 
Hungarian Republic, 

The address was all the more stirring because of the 
conspicuous part the speaker had taken in trying to prevent 
the consummation of the greatest crime of the modern era. 
It was all the more striking for being delivered in the purest 
English which, as was well known, Kossuth learned in captiv- 
ity from an English dictionary, and copies of Shakespeare and 
of the Bible. 

Both Don and Bert were present, but their attention was in 
a measure diverted from the larger interests of the occasion by 
things that became singularly personal to them. Their 
beloved instructor, by the insistance of Kossuth, sat on the 
platform among the most distinguished men of the city and 
state. In his opening remarks, Kossuth referred to him as 
being present, and said that he had been one of his most able 
and trusted compatriots, and one who, rather than recede from 
the struggle for independence, had suflered both confiscation 
and exile. He earnestly commended the professor to the con- 
fidence and the sympathy of the American people. It 
delighted Don and Bert to witness how instantly and generally 
the great audience cheered for the professor. But the next 
sentence overwhelmed them with confusion of mind. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


229 


^^Boston has the honor,” Kossuth went on, ‘‘of having two 
lads who were the first to discover the presence of the professor 
in this city, the first to recognize his merits, and the first to 
extend to him generous sympathy and material aid.” 

“Three cheers for the lads,” shouted some one in the gal- 
lery, and thereupon the cheers were given with a will, to the 
great pleasure of Kossuth and the intense gratification of the 
professor. 

From that moment the professor’s fortunes began to change 
for the better, and not long afterward he became a tutor of 
languages in Harvard and a welcome guest of the literary and 
political circles of Boston. He remained loyal to his young 
benefactors and continued to hear their recitations and to 
direct their studies. 

Immediately after the Faneuil Hall meeting, Krasinski was 
interviewed by the reporters concerning the lads referred to 
by Kossuth. He frankly gave their names, described the 
occasion on which he first met them, and freely detailed the 
particulars by which he had been placed under such great obli- 
gations to them. 

The boys’ secrecy availed them nothing. “The Tombstone 
Detective” was for the third time prominent in the local col- 
umns of the dailies, but this time as Don Donalds plus 
Bertrand Williams. 

The Reverend John Paul Lovejoy, D. D., who had settled 
at Worcester, trembled in his Oxford shoes when he read the 
latest news of “The Boy Philanthropist,” and he shivered all 
the more when he learned that “Bertrand J. Williams,” his 
whilom “ten cent” correspondent, was Don’s friend, and, 
“double,” as the reporters styled him. But having consigned 
his great sermon with its “Telling Illustration” to the very 
bottom of his barrel, his name escaped further association with 


230 


AIR CASTLE DON 


the names of the boys who had become such thorns in his flesh. 

The amiable Arabella had turned up her naturally ^‘tip- 
tilted nose” still further when she heard that the widow had 
descended to the harboring of a “Hun” for a boarder, but 
when the reverberations from Faneuil Hall reached her she 
was badly stunned. She had passed many an hour feasting on 
The Mysteries of Paris, and of London and of New York; with 
far less satisfaction she now sat in her chamber vainly endeav- 
oring to digest what she piously called “The Mysteries of 
Providence,” so inscrutably deepened by the accumulating 
clouds that persistently arose from the attic of the Williams 
Boarding House. It greatly added to her melancholy, as well 
as to the envy of the Coverts, to find that the widow’s house 
was becoming so celebrated that it was far more remunerative 
to its mistress than it was when Don shouldered his trunk 
across the Square and planted his green self so near the sky. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


talking through his hat. 


Although efforts had been made to induce Don to descend 
a story or two, he still retained his attic quarters. The seclu- 
sion no less than the elevation pleased his fancy. Besides, 
both he and Bert declared that the air at that height either 
came in fresh from the country or from the sea. And the 
pattering of the rain on the roof or the whistling of the wind 
around the chimneys over their heads was far more suggestive 
and poetical than the sound of footsteps and muffled voices. 
Having the whole upper floor to themselves, with all its nooks 
and crannies they were as independent as eagles in their eyry. 

Bob Flanger’s hat had the* place of honor over Don’s 
mirror, where he could see it every time he saw himself, and 
be reminded of the heroic head that once throbbed beneath it 
while the engine thundered on the rail. More great thoughts 
came from beneath the battered felt than were ever dreamed 
of by the perfumed exquisite who, although he may believe 
that in the beginning God created man, thinks that man was 
not finished till civilization crowned him with the glory of a 
“silk plug.” 

Nora dusted the hat every day, and, not infrequently, when 
Don returned at night, he found it decorated with a sprig of 
green or a spray of bloom which she had purchased with a 
portion of her limited pin-money. But her display of senti- 

(231) 


232 


AIR CASTLE DON 


ment was prompted less by the pleasure it afforded Don than it 
was by the memory of the man whom he had cannonized as a 
roundhouse saint. 

She had read of the healing virtues of Saint Peter’s hand- 
kerchief, and she believed that there was virtue in Saint 
Robert’s hat. “I should like to fasten it onto Miss Agin- 
court’s head for a whole week,” she said. “It might be the ’ 
means of her conversion from some of her ugly ways.” 

Bert laughed immoderately at the quaint conceit, saying: 
“She would cut a queer figure with that hat on.” 

“It would not be half so queer a figure as she now cuts in 
the eyes of the angels with even her best Sunday hat,” Nora 
retorted with spirit, and truth withal. “I would rather be in 
fashion with God than to be in fashion with all the world 
beside.” 

“Well, I am glad I saved that hat,” said Don sympathizing 
with Nora’s seriousness. “The Bible says of Abel’s faith: 
“By it he, being dead, yet speaketh”, and I am sure that poor 
Bob speaks through his hat to me every time I look upon it, 
and every time I think of it. All the while I was listening to 
Professor Krasinski that night at The Boston Originals, Bob 
was speaking to me through his hat and saying, ^There’s your 
chance to use some of that trust money you have on hand to 
good advantage.’ And he spoke truly. He’ll tell me what 
to do with the rest of it.” 

The jovial major, remembering how carefully Don had 
saved the hat, often jested with him about it, but was just as 
often met with the rejoinder that Bob was speaking through it 
as eloquently as ever. This seriousness, coupled together with 
the singularity of the expression, led the major to tell Dorothy 
and the colonel what Don was in the habit of saying about 
Bob and his hat. The colonel reiterated it to Ticknor and 


AIR CASTLE DON 


283 


Fields, and through them it got to the ears of the literary cele- 
brities who congregated there, and finally to the pencils of the 
alert reporters, who began to use it as a stock phrase. As 
Boston is supposed to set the fashion for literary phraseology, 
there is reason for believing that this is the origin of the 
expression, '‘Talking through his hat.” To be sure, we would 
not lay this down as literary law and gospel. But as we must 
account for everything in one way or another, this is a good 
way to account for the origin of the phrase. It might be 
objected that the expression as used at present does not bear 
out the former meaning. Yet to this it may be replied that 
many words that were of respectable parentage have sadly 
degenerated from their primary significance. When Don first 
used the phrase, Henry Ward Beecher, who was then rising 
to be the first preacher of the modern pulpit, might have bor- 
rowed it without the slightest danger of being impeached for 
using slang. 

One morning when Don reached the store, the major 
handed him fifty dollars, saying with the air of a man who was 
making a good beginning for a new day: “A laty vas at mein 
house last night, und from Dorothy she vas vind out all about 
dot hat und how Bob vas talk through it, und tells you vat 
you must do mit dot monish you receifed from dose beoples 
vat don’t hafe any names. Und she was gif me vifty tollars 
und say she don’t hafe no name to go mit it. Und you vas 
hafe to ask dot hat vat you shall do mit it. Und if you vas 
vind annuder Brovessor Krasinski, or some udder poor veller 
who vas need it just like him, it vas as goot as she vas vant it.” 

"That will, make one hundred and ninety dollars I have 
received since that Krasinski affair came out in the papers,” 
said Don, anxiously, as he took the money; "all of it is to be 
used at my discretion for the benefit of unfortunate people; or, 


234 


AIR CASTLE DON 


rather, at the discretion of Bob Flanger’s hat. They ah speak 
of that, and seem to have more confidence in it than they do in 
some of the charitable societies. They say the winter is 
approaching and times are so hard that many will suffer if they 
are not helped. But they should distribute their own charity, 
and not place so much responsibility upon a mere boy.” 

The major made light of Don’s embarrassment, and 
chuckled aloud as he replied: ^‘You vas a zoziety all py your- 
selves, mit Bob for bresident, you for treasurer, und dot Bert 
for segretary; und you vas make your reborts to Nora und dot 
little mudder some more ven you vas veels like it. Dot’s all 
fery goot, you see. Dot laty vat sends vifty tollars ish rich, 
und she say if you vas want some more she vill gif it just as 
you say.” 

“She must be a noble woman,” said Don, with feeling. 
“Please thank her in my name, and assure her that I shall 
make a good use of what she has sent, and account for every 
dollar.” 

That evening Don and Bert and Nora had just settled 
themselves to their language lessons when they heard a cane 
thumping up the attic stairs with an emphasis that left no doubt 
in their minds as to the identity of the approaching visitor. 
Father Taylor, who lived near, was in the habit of visiting them 
frequently, and considered himself privileged to start for the 
attic the moment he had passed the compliments of the even- 
ing with the widow in the hall below. He always carried a 
heavy hickory cane which had a crook that was as big as “the 
crook in the lot” that the Bible tells of so mysteriously. 
Whenever there was anything particular upon his mind, that 
cane thumped like an old-fashioned door-knocker, to the great 
disturbance of nervous and timid people who were not accus- 
tomed to his way. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


235 


“There comes Father Taylor!” exclaimed Nora, who always 
delighted in a call from the mariner preacher. “By the way, 
he is thumping he must have something tremendous upon his 
mind.” The words were scarcely spoken when there came a 
knock upon the door that would have split the panel if it had 
not been proof against such violence. 

“Come in, and welcome,” said Bert, as he hastened to open 
the door, and greeted the visitor with the cordiality that was 
born of both confidence and affection. 

“I see you are all sailing for the port of knowledge,” said 
Father Taylor, who rarely spoke without using nautical terms. 
“That’s a good port to steer for, and you can’t do better than 
to press on all the canvas you can carry while going in that 
direction, especially while you are young and taut in your rig- 
ging and stiff and strong in your timbers. But I must run up 
under your quarter for a minute or so, for the king’s business 
requires haste.” 

“Your cane said business every step you took up the stairs, 
and we have prepared ourselves accordingly,” said Don, lean- 
ing back in a listening attitude. 

“Spoken like the hearty that you are,” Father Taylor 
responded with evident satisfaction. “And now to throw the 
lead at once; that stevedore we were talking about the other 
day, came home this afternoon with another wife in tow; and 
that, too, when his last one had been dead only seven weeks. 
You know what a brute he is, and if my reckoning is correct, 
his new wife is as much like him as one shark is like another. 
That only son of his didn’t run along side of her very heartily, 
and by way of a wedding feast the father gave him a rope’s- 
ending that has welted him from head to feet. The boy ran to 
my house for refuge, and I have taken him under my lee for 
good. Got papers from the Flumane Society for that purpose. 


236 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Now, what shall I do with him? He is the brightest boy in his 
school, and as trim as a clipper ship. We can’t afford to have 
him wrecked by a drunken father and a virago of a step-moth- 
er.” And Father Taylor thumped the floor so vigorously 
while he was speaking that the boarders in the flat below sup- 
posed that the boys were putting down a new carpet. 

^There are fifty dollars for him,” said Don, laying the crisp 
bill in Father Taylor’s hand. “A lady sent it to me this morn- 
ing to use at my discretion ; and Bob’s hat has been speaking 
to me all day about it. I guess the Lord had Ladd Chapin in 
mind when he turned that bill in Bob’s direction. Ladd’s 
mother was a woman after the Lord’s own heart, and I am sure 
that He knows enough about His business to prevent the son 
of such a mother from being driven to the dogs when he could 
better be led to a decent life.” 

“There she blows!” exclaimed Father Taylor, driving his 
knuckles into his eyes in lieu of a handkerchief to brush away 
his tears of satisfaction, while his swarthy mobile face, so nobly 
and so deeply seamed with lines of thought, switched about as 
if angels of joy were pulling at the strings of expression. “I 
have sighted a regular sperm whale this time, and no mistake,” 
he continued, in Nantucket whaleman phraseology. 

“If you will send Ladd to Exeter Academy in New Hamp- 
shire,” said Don, “where he will be beyond the reach of his 
father, I am sure that the lady who sent that fifty dollars will 
gladly become responsible for his education, seeing that he is 
such a deserving boy. I do not know her personally — not 
even her name, but Major Vonberg does, and he assures me 
that she is as benevolent as she is rich. She sent word that she 
would honor any demands I might make upon her. She has 
great faith in what Bob says through his hat, and I am sure 


AIR CASTLE DON 


237 


that he, with his hand upon the throttle of this business, would 
let on his fullest head of steam.” 

“Of course — of course! What spirit engineer wouldn’t!” 
exclaimed Father Taylor, thumping his way up to the hat and 
taking it down and trying its measure on his own capacious 
head made extra formidable by its heavy shock of tumbled, 
dark Abraham Lincoln-like hair. “Why his head was bigger 
than mine,” he continued, as the hat settled quite loosely to his 
eyebrows. “The brain that carried that hat had room enough 
in it for whales to swim in; it was a sea, not a gudgeon pond. 
Let us pray.” 

And with the hat still on his head, the absent-minded man 
who was as grand as a cliff and as sweet as a flower, knelt, and 
without any polite preliminaries of supplication poured out a 
prayer for Ladd Chapin that was so briefly to the point and so 
fervently and pathetically pleading, that the three who knelt 
with him, felt as if the fountains of the great deep were being 
broken up. 

“There,” he said as he arose from his knees, “I know it’s 
all right for Ladd, so I’ll square away, and give him the signal 
of Land ho!” And he thumped his way to the door with Bob 
Flanger’s hat still hanging down over his eyebrows like a 
shadowing helmet of strength from the invisible world. 

“Excuse me. Father Taylor,” said Don, “but you mustn’t 
take Bob away from us.” 

“Well, I declare!” he exclaimed, lifting the hat from his 
head and looking at it with twinkling eyes. “I have been 
caught praying with three pairs of spectacles on my forehead, 
but you are the first to catch me praying with a hat on. The 
fact is, there is so much for me to do in this world that I cannot 
always stop to see whether my rigging is ship-shape or not. 
If you had not spoken I should have gone straight home with 


238 


AIR CASTLE DON 


that hat on my head, and my wife and daughters would have 
been thrown into spasms. They would have made more fuss 
over it than the Lord did while I was praying. The Lord 
seeth not as man seeth — nor as woman, either.” He placed 
the hat upon its peg and then went thumping down the stairs 
with so much calm energy that the boarders peeped from their 
rooms to see what had happened. 

‘‘He is a grand old fellow!” exclaimed Bert, with enthusi- 
asm. “That Lovejoy’s D. D. ought to be taken away from 
him and given to Father Taylor.” 

‘Pshaw!” sniffed Don, contemptuously. “Taking the 
D.D.from him would be like taking the clothes from Barnum’s 
Living Skeleton; and giving them to Father Taylor would be 
like sticking a pair of goose-quills into the wings of the Angel 
Gabriel. 

“But let’s get to work. A visit from such a man as he is, is 
like a breath of good sea air; it puts life and energy into a 
fellow, and makes him feel like taking mountains by the ears. 
Professor Krasinski will be here to-morrow night, and our 
lessons must be recited without fault, for his commendations 
are worth having.” 

Nora was the first to close her book. Perhaps this was due 
not so much to the superiority of the feminine intel- 
lect as to the fact that French is so much easier 
to learn than Greek and Latin. She made no boasts of 
being in advance of them, yet she was impatient at their delay, 
for she was anxious to free her mind concerning Ladd’s griev- 
ances and prospects. He was her schoolmate and she was 
well acquainted with the good reputation he bore among the 
teachers and his school companions. 

“Is he really taken from that drunken father of his? and will 
he really be sent to Exeter Academy?” she anxiously asked. 

“Be not faithless, but believing,” said Bert, promptly, turn- 


AIR CASTLE DON 


239 


ing against her the weapon she was so fond of using against 
others. As soon as that rich lady hears that Don and Bob 
Flanger and Father Taylor are pushing him uphill, she’ll join 
in the push with all her might. Don said, Exeter Academy, 
and that settles it. But won’t Father Taylor enjoy showing 
that fifty-dollar bill to Ladd and telling him the news. I 
shouldn’t mind being a minister myself if I could pray as he 
prayed here, and have my prayers backed up as his are. It 
would be better than being either rich or great. I shouldn’t 
wonder if Don finally ended in a white chocker.” 

“Father Taylor doesn’t wear a white choker,” said Don, 
quietly. “Neither does Theodore Parker, nor Edward Everett 
Hale, nor Starr King, nor Henry Ward Beecher,” he con- 
tinued, naming some of the eloquent men he had listened to. 
“But The Reverend John Paul Lovejoy, D. D., does,” he 
added after a pause that was filled with bitter recollections. 
“And now that I come to think of it, I never saw my father 
wear a white choker. If I should ever get into the pulpit, I 
would rather have the whiteness in my heart than around my 
neck.” 

“But -if I should ever marry a minister,” said Nora posi- 
tively, “I’d want him to wear a white tie; it looks so neat, cool 
and stylish, you know.” 

“Of course,” interrupted Bert, sarcastically; “the females 
dote on the white choker, and I guess that’s the principal 
reason why so many ministers wear them. But I’ll bet you a 
dollar that neither Jesus nor the Apostles bothered themselves 
about white chokers and shad-belly coats and collars. When 
a minister has to advertise his calling by his clothes, it’s a sign 
that he should join the circus or the theater, where they depend 
more upon advertisements than they do upon the Lord.” 

“You are just too awful for anything,’ said Nora, gathering 
up her books and leaving the room in a pout. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


IN A PREDICAMENT. 


Professor Krasinski was a naturalist, but not of the kind 
that is satisfied with pressing a leaf in a herbarium and giving 
it a big name in a learned language. If he happened to be 
under apple blossoms in spring time, he would, as like as not, 
say to an apple twig: ‘‘Look here, my fine little fellow; you 
look very gay and sweet now, but very soon you’ll have to shed 
your blossoms, those daintily scented and beautifully crimpled 
pink gowns and white petticoats, and begin to think of some- 
thing more solid. I know that a green, fuzzy little apple is not 
near so pretty as a blossom, but it’s a deal more promising, and 
the blossom that isn’t willing to make room for it by dropping 
out of the way, isn’t worth the blooming.” 

In this same manner he studied boys in general, and Don 
in particular, watching every degree of development, and talk- 
ing his thoughts aloud with the most companionable freedom 
and sympathy. He saw that Don’s aims were becoming sim- 
plified. The boy’s mind was shedding its pink and white petti- 
coats. It was rounding out into the shape of the sphere — that 
simple form which is the symbol of solidity and completeness. 

He and Don had been conversing about The Lady of The 
Lake Club, and it pleased him amazingly to hear Don go on, 
because he saw that the boy Avas beginning to laugh at the 

(240) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


241 


theatrical clothes, the complicated ceremonies, the tremendous 
titles and the grandiloquent speeches of the secret conclave 
that used to meet on board of The Lady of The Lake. 

To make his laugh all the merrier, he fell in with his mood 
and said: “Arnold Doane, your Grand Potentate, must have 
been a master joker as well as a master of ceremonies. I sup- 
pose he was trying to teach you how to make fun of the things 
that deserve to be ridiculed, wise old boy that he was. Since 
my arrival in this country I have joined six secret societies, for 
I desired to learn something about the undercurrents of Amer- 
ican life. I may be wrong in saying it, but nevertheless I am 
of the opinion that several of the societies to which I belong 
are jokes, native-born, American jokes. The robes worn and 
the big titles assumed are doubtless intended to pour ridicule 
upon the dazzling trumpery of old world monarchies. It is 
possible, however, as I will admit, that they may also be 
intended to ridicule the savagery of the aboriginal inhabitants 
of this country — the Heap-Big-Indian with his Hole-In-The- 
Sky name, and his eagle feathers, his red and yellow paint 
decorations and all-night scalp and ghost dances. If they are 
not jokers, they must have a hankering after old world splend- 
ors and titles, and being afraid of democratic publicity, meet 
in secret to gratify their hankerings. 

“But, by the way, what became of your juvenile Grand 
Joker and his Lady of The Lake Crew? Are they still playing 
Little Bo-Peep under those theatrical clothes and big titles, 
or are they outgrowing such things?” 

“Doane went to Australia to dig for gold, and the other 
Grand Fellows are doing such common things as fishing, dig- 
ging potatoes, chopping logs, carpentering and ship-building,” 
Don replied, hardly knowing whether to laugh, or to look 
serious. “I was Keyman to the club, and I am now keyman 


242 


AIR CASTLE DON 


to the Vonberg cash box. I also wore the cap and bells at the 
club, and for aught I know I am wearing them still.” 

‘'Never speak lightly of the common callings of life, my 
lad,” said Krasinski, earnestly. “Society couldn’t stand upon 
its legs for a moment if it were not for the bones of the 
common callings. And never depreciate yourself. Self 
depreciation is the mildew of ambition and endeavor, and the 
bane of all success. It is not humility but only the mockery 
of it. How about that boy you have recently taken in 
charge?” 

“Ladd Chapin is not in my charge,” said Don. “I received a 
note from Mrs. Lydia Godwin requesting me to take him to 
her. She proved to be the lady who sent me fifty dollars to be 
disposed of at my discretion. Being a rich widow without 
children, she has adopted Ladd and will educate him. But 
although Mrs. Godwin is doing so well by Ladd, she is getting 
me into a sea of trouble.” 

“What kind of trouble?” asked the professor, solicitously. 

“Tract trouble. She has laid out Salem street, and the 
streets adjoining, into a tract district and wants me to become 
her tract distributor. I told her I had no more piety than a 
cat. Yet, notwithstanding all my protestations, she insisted, 
and here I am with five hundred tracts on my hand which I 
have promised to distribute. Now what do you think of that 
for an adventure? I am to begin next Sunday by giving away 
one hundred.” 

“But you could have declined,” said Krasinski, smiling in 
spite of his courtesy. 

“Yes, of course I might, could, would or should have 
declined, but for all that, I didn’t, you see. She had been so 
nobly generous to Ladd, I thought I ought to be willing to do 
something for her. But one should have a face and a voice to 


AIR CASTLE DON 


243 


fit the tracts. ' I have been looking over some of them, and the 
more I examine them, the more ridiculous I feel. If anyone 
should take one of those tracts and begin to converse about the 
contents, there would be nothing for me to do but to run for 
it. Let me try a dozen of them on you, professor, by way of 
getting my hand in. You can at least tell me what you think 
of them.’' And Don opened one of the packages and gave 
Krasinski an even dozen. 

The professor received them as gingerly as if he were 
handling torpedoes. He was not used to this kind of spiritual 
ammunition. Still, as in courtesy bound, he began to look 
them over, but, as must be confessed, with the eye of a critic 
instead of the submission of one who takes everything for 
granted that passes under the name of religion. It required 
no great insight to discern that some of the leaflets were very 
good indeed, but that others of them were crude, if not coarse, 
and unimpressive if not positively ludicrous in their exaggera- 
tions. He rubbed his chin, scratched his head, and moved 
uneasily in his chair. He was able to speak in seven 
languages, but in the present instance was at a loss to express 
himself in any. 

‘‘Did Mrs. Godwin really give you five hundred of these 
tracts to distribute promiscuously?” he asked, finessing for 
time, in the hope that he should soon find words adequate to 
the emergency. 

“Yes; five packages, one hundred in each package, as you 
can see for yourself,” said Don, smiling, and placing the pack- 
ages in a heap on one of the professor’s knees. “And that is 
not the worst of it,” he added, as Krasinski carefully returned 
the toppling pile to the table. 

“What worse thing could a good woman do?” asked the 


244 


AIR CASTLE DON 


professor, in an almost tragic manner, and bending forward so 
as to meet the answer half way. 

‘‘She is a member of the Salem Street Congregational 
Church, of which Doctor Edward Beecher is the pastor. She 
gave me a note of introduction to him, and would not let me 
leave the house until I promised to go to him for further 
instructions about this tract business. Think of being sent to 
beard such a lion as that in his own den ! Perhaps she has sent 
me there to be converted, when the fact is, I don’t want to be 
converted — at least — not by any doctor of divinity.” 

At the mention of Doctor Beecher, Krasinski leaned back 
in his chair with a sigh of relief. He was too much of a gentle- 
man to make light of sacred things, but as Don went on he had 
to bite his lips to prevent his mirth from getting the mastery of 
his breeding. 

“I will go to the doctor with you,” he said, as gravely as 
he could under the circumstances. 

Don clapped his hands with delight, and exclaimed: 
“With you to back me, I shall not be afraid to meet a dozen 
D. D.s.” 

“The doctor is taking Hungarian lessons of me,” continued 
the professor. “I have an appointment with him this evening, 
and you can go down with me. You may dismiss all fear of 
embarrassment in his presence. We are friends, and the fact 
that your pious Mrs. Godwin sends you to him gives me a 
good opinion of her discretion. There is method in her mad- 
ness, and, as I begin to suspect, something that is better than 
method, even. It would do you no harm if you were to meet 
the whole Beecher family.” 

“The whole Beecher family!” exclaimed Don, appalled by 
the mere mention of such a thing. “Why there are eleven of 


AIR CASTLE DON 245 

them, including Doctor Lyman Beecher, the father of 
them all.” 

“Yes, I know it; and I heard the grand old patriarch of the 
tribe preach at Cambridge last Sunday. They make a bright 
galaxy. I wish there were more such stars in the American 
firmament. Their light reached me even in Hungary. Since 
arriving here, I have become personally acquainted with six of 
the family, and I am charmed with every one of them, but with 
none more than with Edward, the Salem Street pastor, who 
puts me more and more in love with American institutions and 
people.” 

“I will consent to go there with you to-night if you think 
that he will help me out of this tract predicament,” said Don, 
yielding to the professor’s enthusiasm. 

The doctor lived on one of the short streets leading out of 
Salem street. He received his visitors very cordially and con- 
ducted them into his study, which was such a wilderness of 
books and such a chaos of papers and odds and ends of every 
description, it was quite difficult to find a place to sit down. 

“They say that confusion is a sign of genius,” said the 
doctor laughingly, “but I can assure you there is no genius 
here, unless you have brought one with you.” And he glanced 
smilingly at Krasinski, and from him to Don, who colored like 
a school girl, yet could not help smiling back at him. 

“I am afraid that your Conflict of Ages is the cause of the 
confusion in your study,” said Krasinski; and then turning to 
Don, he went on to say with a freedom that showed the terms 
he was on with the doctor: “Every Beecher has a hobby, and 
the doctor’s hobby is that we lived in another world before we 
arrived in this, and that we are permitted to come that we may- 
have a chance to correct the blunders we made before we came 
here. He calls his book The Conflict of Ages, and I believe 


246 


AIR CASTLE DON 


he is writing it to see how effectually he can get up a conflict 
among the ministers. By the time his fellow clergymen are 
done with his book there will be nothing but the covers left. 
He has read chapters of it to me, and I’m inclined to think that 
if these were Puritan times we’d see the doctor going up in 
smoke some dry burning day. He is a heretic, if there ever 
was one, but heresy is popular, and I suspect that the doctor is 
as fond of popularity as any of us.” 

“But if he gets the ministers down on him, how can he 
become popular?” asked Don in the innocence of his soul. 

“Why, bless you, boy ! Don’t you know that the man who 
is unpopular with the ministers, is the man who becomes pop- 
ular with the public?” said Krasinski, more than half seriously. 

“You must not mind what the professor says,” remarked 
the doctor somewhat gravely. 

“No,” assented Krasinski, and then added apologetically, 
“I have a pernicious habit of trying to make truth go further 
by dressing it in clothes that do not belong to it. And, to use 
a Yankee expression, ‘I rather guess’ I have contracted the 
habit since I came to America.” 

The doctor laughed heartily at the remark, and then went 
on to engage Don in conversation about some of his personal 
experiences of which he had read so much in the papers. 
Imperceptibly he approached the object of Don’s visit. Evi- 
dently Mrs. Godwin, under cover of tract work, desired to send 
Don upon a sort of still hunt after the worthy poor and desti- 
tute of the district. She had great confidence in his insight 
and discretion, which she thought had been developed in a 
remarkable way by his own painful experiences. She pro- 
posed to have words and deeds walk together. Doctor 
Beecher understood her and had an enthusiastic admiration for 
her benevolence and wisdom. And such was the effect of his 


AIR CASTLE DON 


247 

representations upon Don that his objections to the tract 
business vanished. 

“If that be her object,” he said, earnestly, “Fll take five 
hundred more of those tracts, and agree to get rid of every one 
of them.” 

The doctor continuing, said: “Mrs. Godwin thinks she 
has such an awkward way of putting things, that the best 
course for her to pursue was to send you to me for explana- 
tions. She has a good deal more confidence in me than I have 
in myself.” 

“I am glad I came, for I have discovered that she is a jewel 
of a woman, and that you are a jewel of a preacher,” said Don, 
impulsively. 

“Did you ever hear me preach?” asked the doctor, drawing 
his face down. 

“No; but I’ll come the first chance I get.” 

“Better not, my boy; I am as dry as a broomstick.” 

“Well, I like broomsticks that have good sweepers at the 
end of them, especially when they get into the pulpit, where, 
according to my notions, there is a grand chance for pulling 
down cobwebs and getting rid of dust.” ‘ 

The doctor glanced at Don very gravely for a moment, and 
heaved a sigh, for cobwebs and dust, however sacred they 
might appear, were his particular aversion, and the greater part 
of his life had been spent in contending with them. But he 
thought it a strange coincidence that a mere boy should put the 
truth so patly. 

“What do you think of that, professor?” he asked, turning 
to Krasinski, with a touch of pathos in his voice. 

“Don’t urge an answer,” Krasinski replied evasively. “I 
am taking lessons that I must learn before I shall be prepared 


248 


AIR CASTLE DON 


to recite them. Please go on as if I were not here, or I shall 
feel as if I were intruding.” 

^‘Intruding!” exclaimed the doctor, deprecatingly. ‘'Never 
use that word in connection with yourself again. You are one 
of the best brooms that ever came into this study. Cobwebs 
and dust recognize their deadliest foe whenever they see you. 
After your visits I am twice the broom I was before you came. 

“But I have something else to say to your young friend. 
Mrs. Godwin has been the means of sending five promising 
ministers into the pulpit. She wishes, as she said to me, if 
possible, to make the number a round half dozen.” And 
addressing Don directly, he continued: “She hopes that, by 
getting you engaged in the work she has laid out for you in her 
district, you will become her sixth preacher. She instructs me 
to say to you that if you will consider the matter, she will sup- 
port you through college and through a seminary course.” 

Don blushed to the top of his forehead at the bare thought 
of ever entering a pulpit. There was a long pause, during 
which the good doctor rejoiced in his heart, for he thought it 
the prelude of consent, and acceptance. 

“May I speak my mind freely?” asked Don, with deep 
embarrassment. 

“Certainly! What else are we here for, if not for free and 
honest speaking?” said the doctor forcibly. 

“Mrs. Godwin must be a very noble woman,” Don began, 
“and I am profoundly thankful to her for the interest she takes 
in me, and for the generous and lofty plans she is forming for 
my future usefulness. But she is entirely astray in her selec- 
tion. Ministers should be selected from the flower of man- 
kind. I have neither the piety nor the ability for the work she 
proposes.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 249 

“The bud that is enclosed in humility has great possibilities 
in it,” said the doctor, encouragingly. 

“There are already two ministers in our family,” Don con- 
tinued, “and others of the boys seem to have inclinations that 
run in the same direction. Even if I felt like becoming a 
preacher, I should be suspicious of the feeling, because I think 
it runs in the family blood.” 

“There are seven ministers in the Beecher family,” inter- 
rupted the doctor. “And if our three girls had been born boys, 
doubtless they also would have gone into the pulpit. As it is, 
it is pretty hard to keep them out of it. You have hit a good- 
sized nail squarely on the head when you speak of blood ten- 
dencies leading to intrusions into the pulpit.” 

And while he paused, as if in deep thought, Don began 
again where the doctor had interrupted him. “From what I 
have seen of ministers,” he said, “three-fourths of them appear 
to be mere broadcloth tramps driven around from pillar to post 
at the beck and bid of the worst and meanest members in the 
churches. And I have had enough of tramp-life already.” 

“There goes another nail!” exclaimed the doctor, who was 
too honest to send truth to the shambles. 

“Besides,” continued Don, growing more and more earn- 
est as he went on, “if I were desirous of entering the ministry, 
I would never allow other people to pay my way in. If I 
could not pay my own expenses, Ed give the pulpit a wide 
berth. I have heard my father say that there is too much 
drumming for pulpit students, and that too many of those who 
are drummed into the schools and seminaries are altogether 
too willing to have their way paid by other people.” 

“Your father must be a wise man,” remarked Doctor 
Beecher, “but even the wisest of men sometimes take extreme 


250 


AIR CASTLE DON 


views of things; and when the fathers eat unripe grapes, the 
children’s teeth are apt to be set on edge. But it is evident 
that your convictions are not to be blown away by a mere 
breath of wind. I am free to acknowledge that it is better to 
be footfast than headlong.” 

Thinking that it was time for him to end his call, Don, after 
thanking the doctor for his interest in him, began to pick his 
way through the piles of books that, owing to the overflowing 
of the shelves, were stacked upon the floor. In spite of his 
care, he upset two tall piles that fell to the floor with a great 
noise. His apology for his awkwardness was interrupted by 
the good nature of the doctor, who laughingly said: 

“Never mind the books. It’s only the Apostolical Fathers 
and a lot of the commentators that you have upset. In one 
way and another they have been upset so maay times that they 
must be quite used to it by this time. I presume that the 
authors of some of them, having learned wisdom in Heaven 
since their decease, would not be sorry if they were upset for 
good.” 

“With so many books around you, you must be a very wise 
man,” said Don, diffidently. 

“One may have many books and yet be wanting in wis- 
dom,” was the frank reply. “I sometimes think that I am 
only what Pope calls 

‘A bookish blockhead ignorantly read. 

With loads of learned lumber in his head’.” 

“Just before coming here,” replied Don, “the professor 
gave me a short lecture on the evils of self depreciation ; I hope 
that he will repeat it to you after I leave.” 


CHAPTER XXV. 


KEEPING A CONTRACT 

One wintry Sunday morning Don awoke to find January in 
his room claiming a welcome on the ground of having just 
arrived from Nova Scotia. His approaches were resented and 
an effort was made to drive him out by kindling a fire under his 
very nose. Scratching a hole through the thick frost upon 
the window, Don saw a few of the taller chimneys trying to 
keep their mouths above the billows of a great white sea in 
which the lower ones had been completely submerged. Where 
the roofs of the buildings had been accustomed to show them- 
selves there was nothing but wave on wave of silent crystals. 

Boston had capitulated to a New England snowstorm of 
nearly four days duration. The very boys had cried for 
quarter and on Saturday had carried their sleds to the base- 
ments knowing that even Boston Common was unavailable for 
coasting. 

The entrances to the city were hermetically sealed. The 
snow in the streets was piled to the level of the lower window 
sills, and the isolated vehicles on runners that ventured abroad 
showed such a strong tendency to tumble upon the sidewalks 
that pedestrians were few and far between. 

The trees of the Common and the cemeteries cracked 
beneath their burdens, while the streets resounded with the 
noise of avalanches descending from the roofs. 

The wind blew in terrific gusts, condensing the snowflakes 
(251) 


252 


AIR CASTLE DON 


SO compactly that they smote like particles of flint and rasped 
the exposed surfaces of the building like sandpaper. The cold 
crept into the houses with such insidious persistency that even 
living coals failed to emit heat sufficient to withstand it. 

The hands of all the city clocks were frozen to their faces, 
and city time was as silent as the great wooden watches that 
marked where the time regulators wrought. Sextons, minis- 
ters and congregations were unanimous in their convictions 
for once, and not a single bell pealed the loud call to the usual 
denominational rendezvous. Nature had given the signal to 
the churches that for that day at least she intended to have the 
monopoly of singing and preaching, notwithstanding her voice 
was so untuneful and unwelcome. 

The city was a whited sepulchre in which for the time being 
the people were buried alive. Thomson and Whittier have 
sung the poetic beauties of the snowstorm in the country, but 
on the Sunday we commemorate, two hundred thousand peo- 
ple, more or less, bitterly complained of the prosaic inconven- 
iences of a snowstorm in the city. 

After breakfast Bert, chilled to the bones and discontented 
to the soul, and covered with a quilt in addition to the warmest 
garments he could clothe himself in, went into Don’s room and 
seated himself as near to the stove as he could get with safety. 

“Ever see anything like this down in old Acadia?” he asked 
in a challenging way. 

“No, I never did,” said Don with proud concession. 
“Nova Scotia is so nearly surrounded with water that weather 
like this is next to impossible.” 

“Boston is nearly surrounded by water, too, but that 
doesn’t seem to make any difference with the weather,” Bert 
retorted. 

“There is so little of it that it freezes up with everything 


AIR CASTLE DON 


253 


else, while the arms of the sea that surround Nova Scotia are 
so big and warm they never freeze,’’ said Don, “and that is why 
the atmosphere there never becomes like the congealing stuff 
we are having here.” 

“Twenty-seven degrees below zero,” groaned Bert, “and 
making a header for a still deeper plunge. The mercury will 
burst the bulb next thing we know and start South for a 
warmer country. We’ll have lively times at the store 
to-morrow doing nothing but trying to keep our shins warm. 
But say, old fellow, what in time are you trying to do?” 

Don had all the while been covering himself with a succes- 
sion of garments. He now stood before Bert cased in a heavy 
overcoat with the fur collar turned up his neck, and a fur cap 
with earlets dropped to meet the collar. Bert was wrapped up 
like a mummy to make himself proof against the cold, and he 
supposed that Don was imitating his example preparatory to 
chumming with him in the vicinity of the stove. But when, in 
addition to gloving his hands, Don stuffed into his pocket 
tracts enough to physic a hundred sinners, Bert’s surprise 
knew no bounds, and he again vented his emotions by a snap- 
shot question. 

“I promised to visit some of the back streets of my district 
to-day,” Don said, smiling at Bert’s almost querulous manner, 
“and promises should not be made unless there is an intention 
to keep them.” 

“This is downright madness! Why, the angels themselves 
would be excused from ‘hovering around’ on such a day as 
this!” 

“Possibly; but I am not an angel, and I shall have small 
prospects of becoming one if I disappoint so good a woman as 
Mrs. Godwin.” 

“She will put you down for a goose instead of an angel if 


254 


AIR CASTLE DON 


she hears that you have been out in this Siberian temperature.” 

‘‘I think not. She has money for the needy, who in such 
weather as this may be in their sorest trouble. So long as she 
is ready to give, I am ready to be her hand. Besides, I’ll 
venture to say that Bob Flanger never let a snowstorm or a 
cold wind keep him from the rail when it was his turn to be 
on it.” 

He looked up at Bob’s old hat so reverently that Bert 
became ashamed of himself and said: “You are right, Don; 
and if I had a drop of decent blood in my veins, or a single 
grain of heroism in my nature. I’d trail after you like a dog 
after his master.” 

“Where one is enough, two would be embarrassing. You 
can stay at home with a good conscience. But if I were in 
your place. I’d look out for the little mother as much as 
possible, and see that the fires are kept going for her. And if 
you were to encourage the boarders to patronize the coal bin 
to-day, they’d think none the less of you for it. It would warm 
their hearts, and that goes far toward warming the body. I 
happen to know that you three are popular with the boarders 
because they believe that you consider their comfort as well 
as their pockets; that is a reputation worth keeping up. I am 
happier in my attic with you than I could possibly be in a 
parlor with some people I know.” 

Nora, finding that the lower part of the house seemed like 
the interior of an iceberg, called for Bert just as Don was 
starting out. She was surprised to see Don armed cap-a-pie 
for a battle with the elements, but on being informed of his 
errand, was effusive in her pious commendations, especially of 
the tract part of his mission. 

“You will be sure to catch people at home,” she said, “and 


AIR CASTLE DON 255 

it will give you such a good chance to talk to them about their 
souls.” 

“Their souls!” Don exclaimed, slightly impatient. “Those 
who do not know how to handle a gun are not apt to go hunt- 
ing for big game. I know no more about shooting for souls 
than I do about hunting for elephants. Do you take me for a 
Father Taylor or a Doctor Beecher? Fm willing to scatter 
the tracts, but I wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole if 
this business were to end with them. When Bob Flanger and 
Jake Cullum took me in among the roundhouse saints, they 
didn’t say anything about my soul, yet when they went to work 
on my body, they touched the knocker of the front door of my 
soul. That’s what I aim and hope to do by going out to-day.” 

Don escaped as soon as he could, and Nora went in and 
sat down with Bert, who, with a broad smile, said: “Mrs. 
Godwin and Doctor Beecher combined can’t get Don into the 
pulpit.” 

Nora thought the pulpit the summit of all attainment. 
Her imagination kindled at the bare idea of seeing Don cleri- 
cally clad, even to the white tie, swinging his arms in all the 
glory of sacred gesticulation and rolling out sentences in all 
the unctuousness of pious speech and intonation. She 
thought it would be just lovely to see him take his seat upon 
a pulpit sofa, or chair, and put his right elbow in his left hand 
and his right hand over his eyes with all the solemnity of min- 
isterial dignity. Bert’s declaration that Don would never go 
into the pulpit excited her indignation to such an extent that 
she roundly rebuked him for his hardness of heart and levity 
of speech. 

But out of this hillside of conviction and from among the 
green herbage of religious sentiment so strongly predominant 
in Nora’s marked character, came a pure purling spring of 


256 


AIR CASTLE DON 


maiden partiality for Don. It flowed so transparently and 
openly that Bert had no difficulty in recognizing it. Nora 
loved Don to a degree which startled her brother, and forth- 
with he resolved upon giving her something in return for what 
she had just given him. 

So he gave her a good round lecture on Donology, the gist 
of which was that no girl of her immature age should allow 
herself to fall in love with a juvenile who was but a little older 
than herself. He pointedly reminded her that she was not 
living in India, where children are married at twelve, but in 
Boston, where people are not supposed to reach the high noon 
of love until they are twenty-five or thirty years of age.” 

“It isn’t good sense,” he went on to say, “for girls and boys 
to go a-cooing with one another wholesale before their pin- 
feathers begin to peep through the down of their pigeonhood. 
I don’t mean to say,” he went on with a very paternal air, 
“that either one of you has been imprudently affectionate, for 
although you and Don think so much of each other, you have 
not made fools of yourselves. But I do mean to say that in 
thinking of Don as a minister and wishing for him to be one, 
you are also thinking of yourself as a minister’s wife and 
hoping to be one.” 

It was a cruel little lecture, but a wholesome one neverthe- 
less. As for Don, Cupid played no tricks with him while on 
the streets; Boreas was holding him too sternly in hand for 
that. The snow blinded his eyes, the frost nipped his nose and 
froze his very eyelashes together. Tiring of dodging aval- 
anches from the roofs, he took to the middle of the street, 
where he floundered about in great snowdrifts. Not a vehicle 
made its appearance, and he knew by the red and bloated faces 
of the few pedestrians who were abroad that only an all-con- 
suming thirst for strong drink could have drawn them out in 


AIR CASTLE DON 


257 


such a storm. Seeing a white mound, out of which a shoulder 
was protruding, Don probed it and extracted a man in the last 
stages of intoxication. After working with him awhile, he 
succeeded in learning his residence, whither he conducted him 
with great difficulty, but only to be met by a virago of a woman 
who cursed her husband, and Don also, for not letting him lie 
where he had made his bed. Pitying the shivering children, 
of whom there were three, he endeavord to propitiate the 
mother in the hope of aiding them all But her violence was 
so great he had no alternative but to leave the tumble-down 
den that served as a shelter to the wretched family. 

Warm welcomes elsewhere partly compensated him for the 
untowardness of his first reception. Few were forward to ask 
assistance, while nearly all were anxious to further his aims, 
as well as willing to receive his leaflets. 

Being informed that a family on the second floor of a tene- 
ment building was reported to be in distress, Don knocked at 
the designated door and by a voice within was curtly bidden 
to enter. 

On going in be found himself in a room lighted by a single 
window thickly covered with the fantastic lacework of the frost. 
The floor was bare, and the furniture consisted of a few dilapi- 
dated chairs, a small table, on which were a few dishes, and 
beneath which were piled the utensils belonging to a large, 
much cracked cooking stove that was destitute of fire. 

The occupants of this domestic desert had put on all the 
scanty personal wear they possessed, and in addition, in order 
to keep the breath of life in their bodies, had covered them- 
selves in their beds, of which there were two. In one of these 
lay the parents and two small children, in the other, were three 
girls, ranging from six to thirteen. Of food there was not a 
crumb. 


258 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Astounded by a destitution the like of which he had never 
witnessed, Don expressed his sympathy and his desire to aid 
them. 

At the mention of aid, there was a general stir in the two 
beds. The head of the family raised himself to an upright 
posture, but glancing at the tracts Don held in his right hand 
said, with the sarcastic bitterness of despair: “Tracts will 
hardly meet the requirements of people who are starving and 
freezing.” 

The frigid air was proof enough of the danger of freezing, 
and the emaciation of the faces that were in sight was fright- 
fully significant of the nearness of starvation. 

“I beg your pardon,’’ said Don, thrusting the tracts into his 
pocket,” I forgot I had the tracts. The sight of them must 
be provoking to people who are in your condition. If you will 
lie down and keep as comfortable as you can, I will come back 
with fuel, food and raiment. I may be delayed because of the 
storm and the state of the streets, but you may count on relief 
for a certainty.” 

He had no sooner gone than there was a general outburst 
of hopeful chatter in that dark chaos of poverty and helpless- 
ness. The ragged shrouds stirred with something resembling 
animation. 

“Will he really come back?” asked the smallest girl, who 
had been holding her hands in her armpits to keep them warm. 

“Yes, Belle,” replied Louise, the sister next in age, “didn’t 
you see his face? It looked as if there was a soul behind it 
that never had a sham thought in it. He’ll come back, never 
fear.” 

Had it not been Sunday, Don’s course would have been 
clear to an immediate return from coal yard and grocery. As 


AIR CASTLE DON 


259 


it was, he went direct to Doctor Beecher as being the nearest 
available help. 

In the absence of the usual Sunday services and partially 
inspired by the voices of the storm, the doctor was deeply 
absorbed in working out another chapter of his book on ‘The 
Conflict of Ages.” He was brought down from his clouds by 
the appearance of Don in his hallway looking like an animated 
snowman. Notwithstanding the doctor was a master of words 
he knew the value of deeds. When Don had told his errand, 
Beecher immediately began to buzz like a bee which has spread 
his wings for business. 

“You see that house on the other side of the street,” he 
said, directly. “Well, go over there, and besides finding snow 
upon the street, you’ll find snow upon the doorplate, and that’s 
the name of my best deacon. Give him my compliments and 
your story and tell him to load up for duty. Then hurry over 
to Major Vonberg’s house and tell him to ditto with coals, 
kindling and whatever else he can carry, for his daughter Dor- 
othy has a handsled that she uses for coasting on Copp’s Hill. 
Direct him to report to Deacon Snow in a hurry. Meanwhile 
I’ll see what the preacher can muster. We’d call upon Mrs. 
Godwin, but she is too far away for our present purpose, and 
we will hold her as our reserve.” 

When they met in front of Deacon Snow’s house, they were 
bundled up to the verge of suffocation. The doctor carried 
two big baskets, one packed with provisions, and the other 
with clothing. In his haste to find clothing, he jammed his 
best vest and trousers into the basket and didn’t discover his 
error until the next Sunday morning, when he wanted them 
for pulpit wear. The deacon, big, florid and generous, also 
had a sledload of provisions and clothing. The major, puffing 
like a small engine, had coals, kindling, clothing and edibles 


260 


AIR CASTLE DON 


tied on by means of a clothesline which his servant girl looked 
for in vain during the next washing at his house. When they 
started, Vonberg tugged at the rope ahead, and Don pushed 
behind. Keeping to the inner side of the sidewalk, they 
escaped several avalanches that shot from roofs into the street ; 
but when they reached Salem street, a snow cliff that was no 
respector of persons, and that had been waiting for a chance 
to play a prank, slid from a steep roof and buried the whole 
party. When, unharmed, they began to wriggle out of the 
snow like angle worms out of the ground, they were assisted 
by a lone policeman, who by some miraculous activity of con- 
science was trying to patrol his beat. Seeing that nobody was 
hurt, and that nothing was lost, and finding that all four were 
having a merry time over their misfortune, he took the baskets 
of the doctor, whom he recognized as he did the rest, and 
directing him to hitch himself to Snow’s sled as furnishing the 
easier task, he accompanied them on the way. 

Although talking to the wind is generally regarded as a 
futile proceeding, the major was voluble in his addresses to the 
blast and at times charged against it as vociferously as if he 
were leading a charge against an enemy in Mexico. His 
broken orations were so quaintly amusing that after one of his 
most vehement outbursts the policeman, the deacon and the 
doctor sat down on a snow-cushioned house-stoop to recover 
from their mirth. 

Don sat on a snowdrift for a like purpose, but suddenly 
recalling the scene of destitution he had witnessed, he said: 
‘‘Gentlemen, while we are laughing, that family is starving 
and freezing.” 

“God forgive us!” exclaimed the doctor, taking hold of the 
sled rope again; “but then, after all, God knows that a good 
slice of our lightness of heart is owing to our being on the way 








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AIR CASTLE DON 


261 


to help them. A pint of helpfulness is more exhilarating than 
a puncheon of wine.” 

The noise made by their ascent of the stairs aroused the dis- 
tressed family, and when the party entered, they stood in the 
room looking at the invaders with big-eyed wonder. 

Don attacked the stove without ceremony. As the readiest 
means of starting a blaze under the kindling sticks, he set fire 
to the remainder of his tracts, saying as he did so, that he knew 
of no better use to which they could be put under the circum- 
stances. Both the doctor and the deacon said, amen. 

When the invasion was over and the family was left to 
itself, there was a thanksgiving that needed no governor’s 
proclamation to make it valid. 

Delavin, the head of the family, was an American ship car- 
penter, an industrious and sober mechanic, and foreman of his 
yard. Owing to the depression of the times and his inability 
to obtain other work, his savings gradually vanished until, 
driven from his originally comfortable home, even his furniture 
disappeared piece by piece to the pawnbrokers for subsistence. 

They had been too proud spirited to ask for help, and had 
become so reduced that they were unable to continue their 
search for employment. With the means of existence and 
comfort now liberally yet judiciously supplied, their quarters 
were changed, their persons clothed, their bodies fed, and 
through the deacon and the major, Delavin found odd jobs 
sufficient to carry him through the remainder of the winter. 
Nor was he left to his own resources until amply able to pro- 
vide for himself and family by turning his mechanical skill to 
the building of railway bridges, in which calling he soon 
became very favorably known. 

Of all the distinguished men filling the Boston pulpits at 
that time, there was doubtless not one but would have been as 


262 


AIR CASTLE DON 


prompt as Doctor Beecher to go to the aid of the needy on 
that Sunday had he been called upon for such a work. The 
same conviction may be justly expressed concerning the lead- 
ing officials of the churches, and very many business men. 
But there is no denying the dearth of Dons willing to search in 
the face of discomfort for the perishing who, for want of 
searching, suffer torments. 

When Don returned and gave an account of his experi- 
ences, Bert grew discontented with himself. Nora, on the 
other hand, congratulated herself on having encouraged him to 
go forth, and, alas, for even sweet maidenhood, she, with an 
appreciable degree of self righteousness, credited herself in no 
small degree with the honor of his work. 

There was an interesting sequel to Don’s day’s work that 
may be referred to hereafter. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


A FRUSTRATED THREAT. 

After their work was done, Deacon Snow insisted that his 
companions should dine with him. At the table a No Name 
Society was formed, which in course of time included seventeen 
others besides the four. Strange to relate, this society existed 
without constitution, rules, officers, annual meetings, reports 
or speechmakings. It simply said to Don: “Go ahead, and 
we will back you with all the money you need, and our per- 
sonal efforts also, whenever you have a mind to order us to 
the pulling line.’’ 

So far from proclaiming their doings upon the housetops 
or in the market places, or even at the altars of religion, they 
did not all know one another, much less what each one did to 
keep Don supplied with means. Nor did the papers become 
apprised of their doings until an untoward incident made them 
conspicuous. 

Armed with another bundle of tracts supplied from Mrs. 
Godwin’s pious store, Don went out one Sunday morning 
toward spring on a ‘still hunt’ for other necessitous cases. His 
bank trust fund was growing faster than was comfortable for 
his conscience. It was now eleven hundred dollars, and he 
was anxious that every dollar of it should be about its business. 

When evening came, Don did not return; this was cause 
for anxiety, for the Williamses knew of no intimate friend at 
whose house he would be likely to pass the night. But when 

(263) 


264 


AIR CASTLE DON 


day after day passed without tidings from him, alarm deepened 
into despair. Immediate measures were taken to obtain some 
hint of his fate, but without effect. 

Instead of sympathizing with the general anxiety excited by 
Don’s disappearance. Miss Agincourt, with a perversity, phe- 
nomenal for a woman, insinuated to the Vonbergs that he had 
appropriated the money he was known to have been the custo- 
dian of and had left for other fields. She even went so far as 
to intimate that if the Vonbergs were to examine their books 
they would find that he was a defalcator of their own funds. 
This so aroused Dorothy’s indignation and the ire of the mas- 
culine Vonbergs that she was glad to make an excuse for leav- 
ing their house at the earliest possible moment. 

After her departure, Mrs. Vonberg undertook to palliate 
her offense by pleading her lonely condition, and this stretch of 
charity induced the major to say in the best German he could 
command that his wife was never able to recognize the devil 
until his horns grew long enough to scrape the ceiling. 

The reporter who had befriended Don at the first, and had 
steadfastly adhered to him through thick and thin, now urged 
the major to put an expert on his books in Don’s defence. 
This was done with results that were anticipated by his friends. 
He called at North Square to obtain what information he could 
concerning Don’s benevolent accumulations and expenditures. 
His private memorandum was found to contain a systematic 
account of all amounts received and expended, while his bank 
book showed that the balance called for by the memorandum 
had been deposited at the bank. A call at the bank elicited the 
fact that the money was on hand. 

‘‘Everything is as transparent as air, and as clean as sun- 
light,” said the reporter to the major, “so far as his accounts 
are concerned. He has doubtless become the victim of foul 


AIR CASTLE DON 


265 


play. I have been in the district he was accustomed to visit 
on Sundays, but beyond the testimonies of a few families that 
saw him on the day of his disappearance, at a certain hour in 
certain places, I can gather nothing that would give a clew to 
his fate. A reward ought to be offered for tidings of him.” 

‘‘That has already been decided upon,” said Werner, “and 
we have just sent to the press an advertisement offering a 
reward of one thousand dollars in such a way as to cover all 
the requirements of the case. Besides this, we have sent for 
the best detective of New York to come to our assistance.” 

The press and the police, to whom Don was so well known, 
sympathetically furthered the effort to solve the mystery of his 
disappearance. 

But Don was not dead, nor had he left the city. 

When he went out on the Sunday he vanished from sight, 
he intended to extend his explorations to Endicott and 
Charlestown streets which, at that time included a neighbor- 
hood of doubtful repute. Those acquainted with the district 
alleged that it was a covert for sneak thieves and cracksmen, 
and criminals of a similar description. Don, however, knew 
nothing of this; he only saw that it was a shabby looking dis- 
trict, and he went into it thinking that beneath its surface he 
might happen upon some unfortunates that would be benefitted 
by his visit. 

Discovering an open passage leading to the upper floors 
of a dilapidated brick building of large proportions, he 
addressed a neatly clad dark-complexioned man who stood at 
the foot of the stairs, and after handing him a leaflet, asked if 
he thought there would be any objections made to the distri- 
bution of similardeaflets among the occupants of the building. 

The man deliberately folded the tract and put it into the 
inner pocket of his overcoat. Fixing a keen, yet somewhat 


266 


AIR CASTLE DON 


furtive eye, upon Don, he said in words that were entirely out 
of keeping with the neatness of his appearance: “You are a 
pretty young kid to be round peddling holiness; but them what 
lives in this block needs all the pious pills you can chuck into 
’em. Go right up and let ’em have it. They’ll guy you a bit, 
but I ’spose you’re used to that sort of thing.” 

On the first two floors the occupants seemed to be so aston- 
ished by his presence that they were speechless when the leaf- 
lets were offered. Some accepted them and others simply 
closed the door against him. In one place he was greeted with 
a string of oaths that were as original as they were wicked. 

On knocking at a door on the upper floor, which had but 
one occupied quarter, he was ushered into a room containing 
two men and one woman. The men were playing cards, but 
the instant he was inside, they greeted him with oaths, and, 
rising, approached him menacingly. Now that they faced 
him, Don recognized them as the brothers of one of the men 
sentenced to the penitentiary for robbing the Vonberg house. 
Both were at the trial at which their brother was condemned, 
and as Don left the court room, one of them hissed into his ear: 
“We’ll do you up for this.” 

Instinctively realizing that he was in danger, Don backed 
toward the door, but before he could make his escape he was 
knocked senseless to the floor by a sandbag in the hands of 
one of the ruffians. When he regained consciousness, he 
found himself bound hand and foot, and gagged, and sore from 
head to feet from the kicks they had given after he fell. The 
room was so dark he could form no idea of either its dimen- 
sions or its appearance. He had no means of judging how 
long he had been there, and besides, he was in such a weak 
condition that when he attempted to shift his position by roll- 
ing over on his side, he relapsed into unconsciousness. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


267 


After knocking their victim down and gratifying their 
revengeful feelings by kicking him severely, the men robbed 
him of his watch and money. Believing that he was fatally 
injured, they removed him to a large dark closet, where they 
intended to leave him until night, at which time they proposed 
to remove him to a back alley and leave him to his fate. 

On Saturday evening Don had written a note to Doctor 
Beecher in which he stated the amount he had in the bank to 
the credit of his trust fund account, and expressed his desire to 
expend it more rapidly than he was doing. This note was on 
Don’s person, and fell into the hands of his assailants. It 
excited their cupidity and prompted them to hold Don as a 
prisoner until such times as they could arrange plans by which 
the money in bank could be gotten into their possession. 
Removing the gag and giving him food sufficient to keep him 
alive and keeping guard over him with unceasing vigilance, 
they tried to work upon his fears, but to no purpose. He 
assured them that they might as well kill him at once, for the 
money was beyond their reach, and would remain so. If he 
were to promise to give it up, the circumstances of his disap- 
pearance were so well known at the bank that any attempt to 
transfer the amount would inevitably lead to the detection and 
arrest of the men. 

They realized the cogency of his arguments and were about 
to abandon their plan and kill him outright, when a new turn 
was given to their thoughts by the appearance of the advertise- 
ment, offering the reward for Don or for any information that 
would determine his fate. They now proposed to work for 
the reward and tried to starve Don into submission to their 
plans. 

So intent were they upon the execution of their villainy 


268 


AIR CASTLE DON 


that it would have fared hard with Don but for an interposition 
from an unexpected source. 

Rudd Debolt, the man to whom Don addressed himself at 
the entrance of the building on the morning of his disappear- 
ance, was a notorious cracksman, who had just been liberated 
from the penitentiary after serving ten years for burglarizing a 
safe in a store. When Don met him he stood in the doorway 
deliberating upon his future course. The tract Don gave him 
consisted of extracts from a sermon delivered by Edward Ever- 
ett Hale, then young and very popular in Boston. Krasinski 
showed the sermon to Don and with such unqualified approval 
that the two published the extracts in a leaflet form for use in 
Don’s work. The title was The Better Life, and the words 
were characterized by both the eloquence and the common 
sense of the young preacher. 

When Debolt read the leaflet it made him a changed man, 
and notwithstanding the difficulties in his way, he determined 
to make a struggle for the better life. Both Don’s face and 
manner had accentuated the tract. 

When, in connection with the reward the papers described 
Don, the burglar immediately recognized the description. He 
remembered that he saw Don go up the stairs of the building 
on the second floor of which he himself had a room. He was 
struck by the fact, so explicitly brought out by the press, that 
Don was last seen on Endicott street, and he determined, if 
possible to, to penetrate the mystery of his disappearance, and 
to restore him to his friends. 

Debolt was expert in reading the thoughts of the class to 
which he had heretofore belonged. He was quick to perceive 
that the Bedling brothers — the men who captured Don — had 
something unusual upon their minds. Making himself more 
than ordinarily familiar with them, he wormed himself into 


AIR CASTLE DON 


269 


their confidence, and very soon, after obtaining their secret, 
became an apparent confederate in their conspiracy, thus learn- 
ing where and how Don was confined. Having attained his 
object, the police were informed, and when the building was 
surrounded by an adequate force, Don was discovered in the 
condition described by the ex-burglar, the criminals having 
been captured at the outset. 

Don had been a captive for fourteen days, and was so 
emaciated that he was but the shadow of his former self. 
Vonberg, who had bewailed him as dead, was greatly desirous 
of removing him to his own house for care and medical treat- 
ment, but, as was natural, Don preferred to be taken to his old 
quarters and to the companionship of the widow’s family. 

Happily he was not so much injured as was at first feared, 
and his recovery was so rapid that in six days he was able to 
return to his duties. 

Don’s abductors were speedily sent to keep company with 
the two criminals he had so accidentally discovered on Copp’s 
Hill. 

It was one of the curious effects of this series of incidents 
that the vicious classes of that part of the city became super- 
stitiously afraid of Don and avoided the very mention of his 
name lest it should cast an unlucky spell upon them. If any 
of them happened to see him on the street in the vicinity of 
their haunts, they fled from him lest a look from him should 
send them to prison. 

The building where Don was held captive was discovered 
by the police authorities to be the nesting place of some of the 
most notorious criminals of the city. The eminently respect- 
able member of society who had drawn a portion of his wealth 
from the rentals of the building became so ashamed of the 
notoriety he attained through the publication of the facts, that 


270 


AIR CASTLE DON 


he demolished the structure and on its site constructed a tene- 
ment house that would bear the scrutiny of civilized people. 

^‘Now, Master Don/’ said Bert one evening in the presence 
of Nora, ‘‘you have won scars enough to last for the remainder 
of your natural life, and you ought to turn over this tract busi- 
ness and this running around after poor people to some of the 
societies and their agents.” 

“Yes,” assented Nora, who had suffered unspeakably on 
Don’s account, and who, at the moment forgot to be consistent 
with herself, “let the societies do this work. You have done 
more than your share of it.” 

But Don, who was neither dismayed by his experiences nor 
diverted from his purpose, said: “There is already too much 
societyism and officialism in caring for the neglected and the 
unfortunate. When people are wrecked, they want a rescue 
rope and not a piece of red tape. I shall stick to our No 
Name way of working; and all the closer, now that I have 
Debolt to help me. He has become a host in himself.” 

At the mention of Debolt, both Bert and Nora grew less 
confident as to the righteousness of their motives in trying to 
dissuade Don from continuing his Sunday work. 

There was good reason for mentioning Debolt in such high 
and confiding terms. He was entitled to the reward offered 
for Don, but refused to accept it. This is what he said in 
explanation : 

“That lad gave me that tract at the very moment I was 
debating my future course in my own mind. When one is 
just from the penitentiary one’s prospects are not very promis- 
ing. Nor is this to be wondered at. Bad wheat is apt to 
make bad flour. Those who are bad enough to be sent to the 
penitentiary come out no better than they were when they 
were sent in. There may be exceptions, but they are few. 


AIR CASTLE DON 271 

Still if others were met as I was met, they might be induced to 
do as I have done. 

“My first step in the better life was my determination to 
find Don if he was alive, or to get at the secret of his disap- 
pearance if he were dead. I took my success in finding him 
alive as a sign that I was to be successful in my efforts to be 
a different man. I never thought of the reward for a single 
moment ; indeed, I forgot that it was offered. 

“If I were to accept it, people would say that I found the 
boy for the sake of the money, and I should also be liable to 
the suspicion that I had been a party to his disappearance. 
I sought him for his own sake, and also because I felt that in 
some way my life was bound up in his. 

“Do what you please with the reward. All that I ask is 
that I may find employment that will enable me to live an 
honest life, and that I may be allowed to accompany the lad on 
his Sunday trips among the waste places of the city as a guard 
and helper.” 

The major, who, with his sons, had offered the greater part 
of the reward, decided to set the money apart for relief work. 
He was so strongly moved by Debolt’s plea that he made him 
foreman of his packing department, where he proved handy 
and faithful, and all the rfiore so because he was in constant 
contact with his young friend. 

Debolt now invariably accompanied Don on his Sunday 
tours among the needy and neglected. He had a peculiar 
tact for approaching people who were inclined to be suspicious 
of efforts made for their elevation. He was a good singer and 
ready and apt in speaking. Encouraged by Don, he started 
‘Betterment Meetings’ in various localities and gave ‘Break 
Lock Talks’ that brought him into notice all over the city. 
Don listened to him with an amazement bordering on awe, and 


272 


AIR CASTLE DON 


received impressions from his words that sank very deeply 
into his life. 

So many were affected by Debolt’s 'New Life’ stories that 
it soon became a question as to what should be done with those 
who had determined to imitate his New Life example. 

"Organize a mission,” said some; and even before any plan 
was formed for such a purpose, some began to strain their 
inventive powers for a suitable name for such an undertaking. 
There were almost rancorous disputes as to whether it should 
be called The Bethel Mission, or the Bethesda; the Bartimeus 
Mission or the Magdalene. Two or three wealthy people 
offered to furnish large sums of money toward the proposed 
enterprise, provided the mission should be named after selected 
members of their families. One, especially, a gentleman who 
had made a fortune by manufacturing beer, offered ten thou- 
sand dollars if they would name the mission The Elizabeth 
Chapel, after a deceased daughter. 

Neither Don nor Debolt sympathized with any plan that 
proposed to tag the sheep of the fold with discriminating dis- 
tinctions. There were churches enough in the vicinity to fur- 
nish accommodations for all who were in earnest. There was 
no scriptural precedent for tagging some sheep as having fine 
wool and others as having coarse wool, and separating the one 
class from the other class as if, instead of being sheep and — 
sheep, they were sheep — and goats. 

Deacon Snow aided and abetted by his robust pastor, said: 
"Fetch them along; the faster the better. We have nothing 
that is too good for them. Converted sinners, like Debolt, 
may be the means of converting some of our saints and causing 
them to see the error of their fastidious ways. No church 
should be a mere starch manufactory.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


AN EI^OPKMKNT. 

The Lady of The Lake Club continued its existence, 
though now not one of the original members was in attend- 
ance upon its frequent sessions. The roster of the constituent 
members still occupied the place of honor on the walls. The 
list, made out in the beautiful handwriting of Arnold Doane, 
and carefully framed and glazed, and running with elaborately 
ornamented titles from the Grand Potentate down to the 
Grand Keyman, was as reverently regarded as if it were a 
patent of nobility to which the later members owed both their 
importance and their inspiration. 

Peter Piper had no home of his own, but being in great 
repute among the boys as a man who had no end of veteran 
yarns to recite, they built him a cuddy on The Lady of The 
Lake and placed him in charge of all the belongings of the 
club, furnishing him with the requisite amount of food to keep 
the breath of life in him, and a small gratuity besides. 

Peter was proud of his office, and conscientiously lessened 
the expense of his keep by making independent additions to his 
larder. A hook cast overboard brought him fish, recourse to 
the shore supplied him with clams, search among the shore 
rocks gave him lobsters, and, as he was handy with his gun, 
there were wild ducks that could be had for the shooting. 

He had but a single daily companion, and that was a large 
red squirrel, which he had captured in the days of its infancy 

(273) 


274 


AIR CASTLE DON 


and trained to obey his behests, listen to his conversation and 
amuse his lone hours. The squirrel generally perched on 
Peter’s shoulder in demure sobriety while the Scot was reading 
his Bible, and for want of a tree ran up and down his legs and 
played hide-and-go-seek among his garments when liberties 
of that kind were permitted. When Peter talked, the squirrel 
having discovered that he conversed more for the sake of list- 
ening to himself than he did for the benefit of his company, 
chattered irrelevantly back again in a language which had 
descended to it from the woods. 

As a stimulus to memory, Peter called the squirrel Don,, 
and when it was too pranky for profit, he gave it lessons in 
gravity with as much earnestness as though he were address- 
ing Air Castle Don himself. 

He kept Don supplied with leaves for his bed, nuts for his 
chops, salt for his tongue, and any amount of liberty for his 
recreation. Thankful for the ease of his old age, he not infre- 
quently said to the squirrel: ^T have been young, and now 
am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his 
seed begging bread. See Psalm thirty-seven and twenty-five.” 

It was against Peter’s principle to do any work upon the 
Sabbath day; hence he never rowed ashore to attend church. 
The touch of the oars would have been a breach of the com- 
mandments. But he did not go without preaching. He held 
services on board, and having heard so many sermons during 
l:is life-time that were not according to his notions of what 
they should have been, he preached from the same texts so as 
to suit himself, and never failed to complete the service by 
I raying prayers of Scottish length, and singing Scotch ver- 
sions of the psalms without abbreviation. 

At such times the squirrel availed himself of his liberty, 
and, curling himself up in his leafy bed, slept through the whole 


AIR CASTLE DON 


275 


performances of his revered master. That squirrel dis- 
tinguished times and seasons; for when the club was on board 
he was all life; he climbed legs with impunity, and stationed 
himself on the shoulder of The Grand Potentate whenever he 
desired to watch the proceedings of the august body. 

The Lady of The Lake became enamoured of Peter Piper, 
and fearing lest some untoward event should separate her from 
him, she determined to elope with him. Consulting her ‘‘next 
best friend,” the Wind, she arranged her programme accord- 
ing to his suggestions. 

On Saturday night Peter went to bed and slept the sleep 
of the just; but when he awoke in the morning her Ladyship 
was dancing with a recklessness that made him think he was 
dreaming with his eyes open. The squirrel, terrified by the 
unwonted movements of The Lady, crouched on the Scotch- 
man’s breast and worked its jaws to express its discontent. 

Becoming conscious of his presence, Peter said: “Donny, 
are my senses leavin’ me? Or is the de’il really rockin’ us on 
the holy Sabbath day?” 

He dressed himself and cautiously ascended to the deck. 
The air was clear, and a flood of sunrise-light reddened sea 
and sky. A faint purple streak in the far distance was the only 
sign of land. In the early part of the night a sudden squall 
of unusual violence had broken the Lady from her moorings, 
carried her out toward the mouth of the harbor and then left 
her to herself. The outgoing tide carrried her into the open 
waters of the Bay of Fundy, where, with a wind off shore, she 
was drifting further and further to sea. 

Peter was not long in guessing what had happened; the 
fragment of chain hanging from the bow, and the confusion 
of things on deck told the story. Nor was he slow to discover 


276 


AIR CASTLE DON 


the predicament he was in, nor long in making up his mind 
what to do. 

“Sin’ I canna help mysel’ I’ll gae below an get my break- 
fast,” he said, resignedly. “What is to be, will be. Gin the 
Lord is gaein’ to bury me at sea wi’ the vessel for a coffin to 
save the expense o’ a funeral on Ian’, he’ll not begrudge me 
the eatin’ o’ the things I hae for breakfast.” 

He went below and prepared his meal with his accustomed 
care, and ate it with his usual relish. Donny accupied a place 
at the bottom of the table and followed his master’s example, 
by eating his morning allowance of two nuts and as much corn 
cake as he chose to indulge in. After breakfast, Peter read a 
chapter of the Bible, quaveringly sang a section of the metrical 
Psalms and devoutly prayed a long prayer. Promptly, when 
the club clock indicated the usual hour of Sabbath worship, he 
solemnly placed himself in The Grand Potentate’s chair of 
office behind the stand, and resolutely performed all the parts 
of a regular service, while Donny rolled himself into a ball and 
somnolently enjoyed his ease in one of the club chairs. Not 
until the self-appointed minister ceased his droning, did the 
squirrel begin to show signs of life again. Then he went to 
his master and sought to climb to his shoulder in his habitually 
gamboling manner. 

“It isna fit ye should be sae blithe upo’ this day,” said Peter, 
rebukingly; “it’s not only the Sabbath day, but a day o’ afflec- 
tion an’ woe besides. Gae to yor nest an’ leave me to my 
sorrow.” There was something hindering in his voice, as 
Donny was quick to discern, but inasmuch as the master 
offered no violent opposition, he cautiously continued his 
climbing till he reached the shoulder where he stood up and 
industriously set his pelt in order. Peter affected to ignore 
his presence, yet all the while was glad of his company. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


277 


The day passed drearily with no sail in sight to afford a 
hope of rescue. At night, as there was only a moderate 
breeze, and no sea to speak of, and as the sky was clear, Peter 
went below and slept till morning, for he had trustingly said: 
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow 
shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the 
day is the evil thereof.” 

The next morning was calm and foggy. A schooner 
bound from Halifax to Boston lay in the mist flapping her 
soggy sails in monotonous idleness. Presently every ear 
caught a strange sound. 

“What in the world can that be?” exclaimed the captain to 
his first mate. “It sounds like some one trying to settle a 
swarm of bees by beating on a big tin pan.” 

“It’s a tin pan fast enough,” said the mate, as the noise 
increased in vehemence; “and I guess. some skipper has lost his 
fog-horn overboard and is using a tin pan for a fog signal. 

Presently a lift in the mist disclosed the Lady of The Lake 
not more than a dozen lengths distant. A bleached, sailless 
vessel with only a white-headed old man on board beating a 
tin pan with the energy of a drummer, was not a sight to reas- 
sure the superstitious, and the common sailors on the Lucy 
Ann were nearly paralyzed with fear at the appearance of the 
apparently spectral schooner. 

“What do you make of her, Legget?” asked the captain, 
addressing his first mate, in an awe-stricken voice. 

“I guess it’s the old man of the sea,” said the mate, laugh- 
ing irreverently. “But rather than run the risk of neglecting 
some one in distress, I reckon we’d better lower a boat and 
board the craft. That old chap is making too much of a hulla- 
baloo with that pan to be a regular fore-an’aft-ghost.” 

The mate had no sooner reached the deck than Peter, after 


278 


AIR CASTLE DON 


shaking hands with him in a very flesh-and-blood manner said 
loquaciously: ^‘The Lord be praised for his mercy to an old 
sinner. I heard the floppin’ o’ your sails, an’ I said, ‘How 
shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?’ See Hebrews 
second and third. I believed ye’d bin sent to deliver me frae 
the sea, but wi’ a’ my might an’ main I tried to make ye know 
where I was by poundin’ the pan. ‘Faith without works is 
dead,’ ye ken. See James second and twentieth.” 

The sailor, who accompanied the mate, on hearing this kind 
of speech, increased the distance between himself and Peter, 
under the impression that he was a raving lunatic. 

The mate, however, had met Scotchmen before, and several 
times in his life had run against that particular type of Scot 
that makes a Bible concordance of himself. Besides, having a 
sly vein of humor, he thought he detected something of the 
same kind sneaking under cover of the old man’s piety. He 
was confirmed in his suspicions when, on venting his mirth, 
Peter laughed back at him in the sanest way imaginable, and 
by way of forestalling enquiries, said: 

“My name is Peter Piper, but Pm sometimes ca’d Peter 
Pickles, or Peter Pepper, or Piping Peter, or Peter-Peter 
Punkin-eater, accordin’ to the workin’ o’ the wickedness o’ 
them that speak.” And then, to the great amusement of the 
mate, he went on to explain how he happened to be in such a 
plight. “Ye’ll ken the truth better gin ye’ll go below an’ take 
a luik at our insides,” he added at the end. 

The long room extending from stem to stern, the pompous 
desk, and plain chairs; the cooking and eating arrangements, 
the moose-horn chandelier and tangle of other curiosities; the 
ornamental roster and the pictures upon the walls, the long 
table and numerous books; and, above all, the grotesque 
assortment of theatrical garments and equipments hanging at 


AIR CASTLE DON 


279 


the far end of the room amazed Legget and appalled his more 
superstitious shipmate. 

The latter was more and more inclined to believe that The 
Lady of The Lake and all her belongings boded no good to 
any one who had the misfortune to be on board of her. Whilst 
he was debating matters in his own mind, Donny, unnoticed 
by him, came up behind, and, rejoicing in the addition to the 
cabin company, gave a spring and ran up the sailor’s body till 
he reached the shoulder. The man was so terrified that he 
uttered a shriek and started for the companionway ; nor did he 
stop till rowing back to the Lucy Ann he informed the cap- 
tain that the devil and all his imps had possession of the 
strange craft. 

After berating the man for his cowardice, the captain, tak- 
ing with him a less superstitious sailor, boarded The Lady of 
The Lake to investigate matters for himself. Legget was not 
aware of the flight of his shipmate until he saw the captain and 
the new man descending the companionway. 

The explanations that followed, although unavoidably com- 
plicated, eventually ended in an outburst of mirth, in which 
Peter joined without restraint. 

After making an examination of the vessel, the captain took 
her in tow for Boston. She was to all intents and purposes a 
derelict, and whatever she might be sold for, would be clear 
gain for the trip of The Lucy Ann. 

Peter remained on board and spent the time between meals 
and prayers in making a cage for Donny, whose fortunes he 
considered as linked to his own, and whose future he intended 
to take care of to the best of his ability. He had sailed into 
Boston several times in the course of his life, though under 
far different circumstances. There were seven pieces of gold 
sewed up in his clothes and having boarded at the Mariners’ 


280 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Home several times he resolved to go there with the squirrel 
until such times as he could decide upon his course. He knew 
the number of Don’s place of business and treasured it in his 
memory as scrupulously as he did the chapter and verse of the 
fragments of sacred writ with which he was in the habit of 
interlarding his conversation. 

One morning as Don was absorbed in his ledgers, all 
unmindful of what was going on around him, a voice at his 
elbow suddenly said : “ ‘The Lord be between thee and me for- 
ever.’ See first Samuel, twentieth chapter, twenty-third 
verse.” 

There was no mistaking the voice, nor the well-known 
peculiarity, much less the person, of Peter who, hat in hand, 
stood with beaming face waiting for the recognition that he 
knew would be warmly given. 

“In the name of all goodness, Peter Piper, how did you 
get here?” Don exclaimed, taking the old Scot by the hand and 
giving him a country grip and shake. 

‘T cam’ the greater part o’ the way on The Lady of The 
Lake; an’ for the rest o’ the distance, which was not great, I 
cam’ on my ain unnerstandin’s. An’ I’m sae daft to see ye 
I’d be willin’ to larn the names o’ a’ the descendents o’ Shem, 
Ham an’ Japhet gin ye were to require it at my hands.” 

“I am so glad myself that I’ll excuse you from that tough 
task. But you do not really mean to tell me that The Lady 
of The Lake has gone into the salt water business again?” 

“Na, not exactly; but summat so, nevertheless; forasmuch 
as I’m here, she fetcht me a’ the way frae Barrington to 
Boston. Ye’ll ken a’ about it gin ye’ll read the marnin’ papers 
which I hae brought wi’ me. Tn the mouth of two or three 
witnesses every word may be established.’ See Matthew, 
^ghteen and sixteen.” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


281 


Don laughed, for ordinarily Peter inveighed against the 
secular press as the abomination of desolation spoken of in 
Scripture, and this citation of papers as evidence of truth was 
something new. There was, however, this reason for the 
change in his sentiments. Nearly all the details published in 
the morning papers concerning the arrival of The Lady of The 
Lake were furnished to the reporters by Peter himself. The 
account included Don’s appearance as Grand Keyman upon 
the roll of the mysterious club, as well as Peter’s singular 
experience in being blown to sea without any volitions of his 
own. Having furnished the information, and much of it hav- 
ing personal reference to himself, Peter waived his scruples 
and purchased a copy of every morning paper in the city for 
future reference. He now laid them before Don as the infal- 
lible means of securing the knowledge he was so much inter- 
ested in. The morning papers were already in the office, but 
as yet had not been scanned. 

Don read the accounts eagerly, and experienced some curi- 
ous feelings when one of the reporters observed : “The arrival 
of the weird little craft in the city where Don Donalds, its 
former Grand Keyman, has become so well known, is a coinci- 
dence that eclipses the inventions of fiction.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


A breathing speee. 

Although Peter was always cleanly in his habits, he was not 
particular as to the fashion of his garments which, when he 
appeared before Don were a medley of patches and colors. 
Don found it difficult to convince him that his wardrobe should 
be changed to suit the latitude of Boston. When, however, 
he gave him a suit of Scotch tweeds his natural prejudices 
against the vanities of the world yielded to his national pride, 
and he came out of the dressing room looking a score of years 
younger than when he went in. 

In the early evening, accompanied by Bert and guided by 
Peter, Don boarded the derelict which lay alongside the Lucy 
Ann at the head of Long Wharf. The first thing he did on 
entering the cabin was to sit down in The Grand Potentate’s 
chair of office and give himself up to the feelings of mingled 
sadness and satisfaction that came upon him like a flood. 

‘The things we once ran after are difficult to run away 
from,” he said to Bert, musingly. “In one form or another 
they come back into our lives so vividly that the past seems 
to be far more real than the present. I wonder if the future 
will fill up as fast with the ghosts of the present, as the present 
does with the ghosts of the past.” 

In explanation of both his meaning and his sentiments he 
went on and gave the history of the principal objects in the 
cabin and of their association with episodes in his boyish life. 

(282) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


283 


Bert listened to him with keen curiosity, but the grizzly old 
Peter listened with a sympathy quickened and deepened by the 
recollections of his own far-away boyhood. And then, think- 
ing of his interviews with Sir Walter Scott upon “The brown 
hillside” he suddenly bethought him of the words he had 
quoted to Don under the apple blossoms, when he found him 
poring over the great romancist’s air castles. He remembered 
the remainder of the quotation and with his heart expanding 
toward the lads before him, he suddenly startled them by 
pathetically reciting these words in unbroken English: 

“Ah, happy boys! such feelings pure. 

They will not, cannot, long endure; 

Condemned to stem the world’s rude tide. 

You may not linger by the side; 

For Fate shall thrust you from the shore. 

And passion ply the sail and oar. 

Yet cherish the remembrance still. 

Of the lone mountain and the rill; 

For trust, dear boys, the time will come, 

When fiercer transports shall be dumb. 

And you will think right frequently. 

But, well, I hope, without a sigh. 

On the free hours that we have spent 
Together on the brown hill’s bent.” 

Don was affected almost to tears by the words and no less 
by Peter’s manner in reciting them, while Bert, choking with 
undefinable emotions, to relieve himself, turned and stood 
before Barry’s painting of the frightened purser of the man-of- 
war, referred to in the earlier pages of this narrative. Don 
explained the picture but, although the story of The Cemetery 
Ghosts of Port Latour was so amusing, in itself considered, it 
somehow forced him to keep in mind the other kind of ghosts 
he had just been thinking of so pensively, and which had been 
so vividly reinforced by Peter’s quotation. 


284 


AIR CASTLE DON 


At this moment Wilhelm and Werner Vonberg descended 
the companionway, followed by the captain and owner of The 
Lucy Ann. The brothers having become greatly interested in 
the story of The Lady of The Lake given in the papers, and 
supplemented by Don and Peter’s accounts during the earlier 
part of the day, had agreed to meet Don on board in the 
evening. 

Like their namesakes in Goethe’s great story of Wilhelm 
Meister, they had a taste for art and immediately became 
absorbed in Barry’s painting, which, instead of having been 
carelessly executed because designed for boys, was painted 
with the characteristic skill of that famous artist, whose name 
was not unfamiliar to the Vonberg brothers. 

The young men were also amateur sailors, passionately 
fond of the sea and sea sports, and their vacations were invar- 
iably spent in the vicinity of or upon the sea. The origin, 
history, size and shape of The Lady of The Lake appealed so 
strongly to their fancy that, on learning that the captain pro- 
posed to sell her with all her belongings, including the picture, 
for four hundred dollars, they gave him a check for that 
amount. They said to Don afterward that they would 
willingly have paid that sum for the picture alone, and that if 
they so desired they could sell it at a price far in advance of 
that amount. 

The vessel was sent to dock and on being thoroughly 
inspected, was discovered to be in a much better condition than 
was imagined, having been built of selected oak throughout. 
In less than a month she was again afloat, copper bottomed 
and so transformed inside and out that she was the admiration 
of all who saw her. The rake of her new masts, the set of her 
sails, the completeness of her rigging,, the curve of her lines, 
the beauty of her figure-head, the sharpness of her cutwater all 


AIR CASTLE DON 


285 


combined to give her the “saucy” appearance which sailors 
delight to recognize. 

Barry’s picture occupied the place of honor in the cabin, 
and everything of the former furnishings that could be utilized 
for oddity or convenience was retained. Even the roster of 
the old club was reframed and glazed and hung where its 
elaborate penmanship and mighty titles could be seen to the 
best advantage. 

The vacation season was now at hand, and the Vonberg 
brothers were keenly anticipating what they called their annual 
breathing spell, and all the more keenly, because in preparing 
for their own pleasure they had intended to share it with others. 

When “Old Glory” was flung to the breeze announcing 
that The Lady of The Lake was ready to begin her voyage 
along the coast, she had the following persons on board: For 
Captain and Sailing Master, Abner Small, an experienced 
sailor and coaster; for Mate, Wilhelm Vonberg; for Sailors 
before the Mast, Werner Vonberg and Den Donalds; for 
Landlubber and Roustabout, Bert Williams; for Steward and 
Cook, Peter Piper, with his squirrel; and for passengers and 
guests, Dorothy Vonberg and Nora Williams, two canaries 
and a maltese kitten. 

When The Lady went down the harbor before a fair breeze 
with all sails set, and with everybody on deck, Don, who could 
not conceal his happiness, said to Piper: “Well, Peter, what 
do you think of this for a shakeup and a turnabout?” 

“I hae been thinkin’ o’ my sins an’ transgressions,” said he, 
contritely. And then he added significantly by way of explan- 
ation: “I hae been a murmerin’ piper a’ my days, an’ pickled 
peppers hae been my diet frae marnin’ till night, an’ frae Janu- 
ary to July. The past hae been my god, an’ the present my 
fear an’ torment. To-day Pm that happy I feel sorry for my 


286 


AIR CASTLE DON 


sins. For why? The sound o’ the waters an’ the voice o’ the 
wind are sayin’ in my ears, ‘Say not thou, what is the cause 
that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not 
inquire wisely concerning this.’ See Ecclesiastes, seven and 
ten.” 

“That is a confession which ought to clear your soul,” said 
Don, smiling responsively at the grim humor with which the 
Scot chastised himself. 

When The Lady made the offing and laid her course across 
the bay for Cape Cod, the rougher water drove Nora below 
laboring under sensations she had never experienced before. 

“It is only sea sickness, my dear,” said Dorothy, who, hav- 
ing been on the water many times before, was not affected. 
“It will not last long — a day perhaps, and then you will be as 
well salted as I am.” 

There are no consolations that can reach a seasick person, 
and Nora felt as if Dorothy’s “only” was adding insult to 
injury. As she sank deeper and deeper into the slough of 
despond she provoked Bert’s laughter by faintly saying: “Oh, 
Bert, I do wish that Miss Agincourt was in my place; she’d 
get paid up for all her ugliness toward Don and everybody else 
that she doesn’t like. What have I done that I should be so 
wretched? Why doesn’t Don come down to see me?” 

“I guess you are being punished for being so spiteful 
against Miss Agincourt. Don can’t come down just now; he 
is taking his watch on deck and his trick at the wheel.” 

“What does he have to carry his watch on deck for, and 
why does he meddle with its wheel? What kind of a trick is 
he playing it? What will Professor Krasinski say if he knows 
that he is tricking that gold watch he gave him?” 

“You have swallowed a convention question box; I don’t 


AIR CASTLE DON 


287 


wonder you feel so badly. Hadn’t I better get you something 
else to eat?” 

“Oh, Bert, I shall never eat again! Why doesn’t some- 
body sympathize with me? It will be awful if you have to 
throw me overboard. Can’t you stop the vessel and put me 
ashore and save my life?” 

In five hours from that time Gipsy was on deck laughing 
at herself as mirrored by Bert, who repeated her questions and 
despairing tones and manner without mercy, and all the more 
relentlessly because he himself was as much exempted from 
sea sickness as if he had been born on the ocean wave. 

It was not the intention of the voyagers to remain at sea 
over night, and toward evening they ran into Plymouth. The 
next morning they visited Plymouth Rock and waxed enthusi- 
astic over the Pilgrim Fathers. 

Suddenly Gipsy asked: “How do they know that this is 
the rock on which the Pilgrims landed?” 

“Oh, get out!” exclaimed Bert indignantly. “Don’t ask 
questions about things that have been settled for all time.” 

“Well, I want to know how it was settled that this is the 
very rock,” she persisted. 

Werner Vonberg, who was well acquainted with colonial 
history, said: “It is a reasonable question, that should be rea- 
sonably answered. In 1741 the Pilgrim Sons had so little 
enthusiasm or so little faith about this spot that they were 
going to build a wharf over the rock. An old man by the 
name of Faunce, who was in his ninety-fifth year, hearing of 
the proposal, caused himself to be brought three miles in a 
chair and placed upon the rock. He shed tears upon it and 
gave his benediction to it as he bade farewell to it. There 
were many witnesses of the scene, and he assured them that his 
father had again and again declared that this was the very place 


288 


AIR CASTLE DON 


where the Pilgrims landed. His words had so much weight 
that the people forbade the building of the wharf. They 
remembered that every year Elder Faunce was in the habit of 
celebrating the anniversary of the landing by placing his chil- 
dren and grandchildren on the rock and conversing with them 
about their forefathers. And hence, after the old man’s last 
visit, they determined that they would celebrate Forefathers’ 
Day with all the pomp and ceremony they could muster.” 

“How many children and grandchildren did the old man 
have?” asked Nora, glancing at the rock and trying to calculate 
how many could stand upon it at one time. 

“I don’t know,” Werner replied, laughing in spite of the 
gravity of the subject. 

“Well, how did the old man know that this was the very 
rock?” she asked again. “Was he one of the fathers, and did 
he see them land?” 

“Of course not, you ninny!” exclaimed Bert. 

“No, he was not one of the Pilgrims,” said Werner; “but 
it is said that his father knew some of the Pilgrims, and they 
told the story of the landing. So, you see that Faunce had it 
quite direct.” 

“Then we can’t swear by the rock for a certainty?” 

“No; not for a certainty.” 

“That’s perfectly dreadful! Why didn’t the Pilgrims cut 
something into the rock to let us know that they landed here?” 

“I guess they were too busy about other things to think of 
that,” said Werner, with assumed seriousness. 

“Let us go somewhere else; I don’t believe that anybody 
knows where the Pilgrims landed, and we are humbugged 
about this rock right straight along, so that people can cover 
Up their ignorance.” 

“Say the Pilgrims didn’t land at all, and, done with it,” 


AIR CASTLE DON 


interrupted Bert with impatience. “History has to begin 
somewhere, and the history of The Pilgrim Fathers must begin 
with this rock.” Then, after a short pause, feeling as if he had 
swamped all his confidence in mere tradition, and to cover his 
retreat he added: “Let’s go to Watson’s Hill.” 

“We would better go to Burying Hill first,” suggested 
Werner; “that is near here, and we know for a certainty that 
many of the Pilgrims were buried there.” 

The celebrated cemetery lay directly back of the town; and 
after ascending about one hundred and sixty feet, they stood 
where so many of the Pilgrims were buried during the first 
year after their landing. 

Seeing that Don walked among the ancient gravestones 
with his hat off, and believing that she was really walking over 
the ground beneath which reposed the dust of the venerated 
dead, Gipsy mused in silence. But when, after a long walk, 
they reached Watson’s Hill, and she was told that there the 
first Indian Treaty was made, she again voiced her curiosity. 

“Are they any surer of this place than they were of Ply- 
mouth Rock?” she asked, quite humbly. 

“Oh, yes,” Werner responded, confidently. “Plymouth 
Rock is settled by tradition only, but this is settled by record. 
Miles Standish met King Massasoit down by that brook you 
see over yonder, and brought him up here to Governor Carver. 
After the white man kissed the red man, they drank, as it is 
said, ‘copious draughts of strong water, and then made the 
treaty.’ ” 

“Did they get the strong water from that brook down 
there? And what made it strong? Was there anything dead 
in it?” 

“Don’t you know what strong water is?” asked Werner, 


290 


AIR CASTLE DON 


turning on her with the suspicion that she was trifling with 
him for her own amusement. 

“No, I do not. I have lived in Boston so long I am awfully 
ignorant. I am going to try and learn something while I am 
out on this trip.” 

“I beg your pardon, Gipsy. Strong water in plain lang- 
uage means rum,” said Werner, with much misgiving. 

“Rum! Do you mean to tell me that the Pilgrim Fathers 
drank rum?” she asked, her face the picture of surprise and 
horror. 

“Yes, in considerable quantities. They landed before 
Father Matthew got here, you remember. And on this very 
hill they gave rum to King Massasoit in such big doses that, 
as the books say, ‘he sweat a long time after.’ ” 

“What did they want to make him sweat for?” 

“Well, you know that the Pilgrims were weak, and the 
Indians were strong. And probably the Pilgrims wanted the 
Indians to understand that if they did the Pilgrims any harm 
they would make them sweat for it worse than the rum did. 
The books say that when the Pilgrims first landed, they fell on 
their knees and then they fell on the aborigines.” 

“What did they fall from? And how did the Indians hap- 
pen to be under them when the Pilgrims fell?” 

Werner looked at Gipsy in amazement, but her seriousness 
was so transparent that checking his risibilities, he replied: 
“The historians mean that when the Pilgrims landed, they gave 
thanks to God for their safety and then began to fight the 
Indians to get possession of their land. 

“Then they were robbers as well as rum-drinkers in spite 
of all their thanksgiving and prayers, weren’t they?” 

“Oh, no; they were the founders of a great nation.” 

“It’s a pity we were not founded by somebody else. I don’t 


AIR CASTLE DON 


29J 


want to hear any more about the Pilgrim Fathers, nor Ply- 
mouth Rock, either. I am sorry we came here. Does all 
history pan out in this way?” 

“Gipsy,” said Bert, severely, “there is no use in trying to 
give you any information. You make a hanging noose of 
every piece of rope that is thrown to you. I am glad that 
there is only one of you in the family. If there was another 
sister like you, there wouldn’t be enough of me left to be a 
brother to either. If you ever get married, you will hang 
your husband on interrogation points just as a butcher hangs 
meat upon shop-hooks. You ought to be ashamed of yourself 
for going back upon the Pilgrim Fathers, and what is more, 
you ought to know that it is the deadliest heresy to say any- 
thing against them. If Father Taylor knew that you were 

doing such a thing, he would discipline you as soon as you got 
home.” 

Dorothy had listened to the whole conversation, and 
although she was amused by Gipsy’s simplicity, she respected 
her sincerity and came to her defence against her brother by 
saying: “Gipsy does right in thinking for herself. If there 
were more like her, there would be less chaff mixed with our 
wheat. If our forefathers had had her for one of their fore- 
mothers, that old Chief Sachem Massasoit would never have 
been asked to sell his birthright and the birthright of all his 
people for a mess of — rum.” 

“You see that my only sister is a good deal like your own, 
Bert,” said Werner, shrugging his shoulders. “To save our- 
selves from getting into any more trouble about the Pilgrims, 
we had better go on board and set sail for Provincetown, for 
although the Pilgrims really made their first landing at Truro, 
we’ll find no trace of them at that end of the Cape.” 

“There!” exclaimed Gipsy, “what do you say to that, Bert? 


292 


AIR CASTLE DON 


What do you say to Plymouth Rock now? Werner knows all 
about it. Truro is the place.” 

“But they didn’t land at Truro to make a settlement; they 
landed there to give the women a chance to wash their clothes. 
They meant all the while to settle on the Hudson River,” said 
Werner. “It was at Truro where their first governor, William 
Bradford, stepped upon an Indian deer trap and was caught 
by the leg and flung into the air by a bent sapling.” 

“Is the tree still there?” asked Gipsy, sarcastically. 

“And can they point out the very place where they had 
their washing done?” asked Dorothy, coming to Gipsy’s help. 
“We didn’t get any pieces of Plymouth Rock, nor any other 
mementoes of the Pilgrim Fathers; but if we went to Truro 
we might pick up some fragments of soap left by our fore- 
mothers, for women who wash almost always throw away their 
soap with their suds. Did they use hard or soft soap?” 

“They must have soft-soaped the Indians or they never 
would have been allowed to land with their rum-drinking hus- 
bands,” remarked Gipsy. “Why didn’t the Mayflower go up 
the Hudson as she originally intended? If the Pilgrims had 
gone there, we Massachusetts people would have been saved 
a good deal of humbugging.” 

“The Indians on the Hudson were too numerous and 
healthy. Here they were greatly reduced in numbers by sick- 
ness and plagues, which, the Pilgrims said, had been sent by 
Providence to make way for them. They settled here to keep 
from flying in the face of Providence,” and Werner spoke as 
gravely as a professor. He went on to say : “We might drop 
into Truro on the way down to Provincetown. The Pilgrims 
called it Cold Harbor, because at that time the Pamet River 
was full of ice. It was there they found three baskets of wheat. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


293 


a bottle of oil and a bag of beans buried under one of the sand- 
heaps/' 

‘Then Boston isn’t the inventor of baked beans!” exclaimed 
Gipsy, with a look of disappointment. “Did they use the oil 
instead of pork? And did they always bake them for their 
Sunday dinners as we do? If the Pilgrims found a bag of 
beans, couldn’t we find a pot of beans under the same sand- 
hills and find out whether the Indians used oil or pork to bake 
with them?” 

“There is no telling what is hidden under those sand-hills,” 
said Wilhelm. “In levelling one of them not long ago the 
laborers found a lot of ice which gave evidence of having been 
buried under the sand a great many years. If the Indians used 
beans as we Boston people do, I see no reason why they should 
not have had ice cream also. And as they had no cows to give 
cream, they probably used cod-liver oil instead. But it is time 
for us to go on board again.” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


AN enlargement op THE HEART. 

When they reached the offing the wind was strong and 
gusty, and there was considerable sea running, yet, under 
single reefs. The Lady shook her head at the water and kept 
her decks as dry as an oven. When off Provincetown the 
wind veered ahead and while they were beating into port, they 
made their tacks in a rainstorm and in the company of scores 
of vessels that were also seeking a harbor for the night or till 
such time as they could double the Cape with safety. 

When they arose in the morning the capacious harbor was 
a forest of masts, and the dark hulls presented a view of almost 
every kind of shipping, from small craft like The Lady, up to 
the majestic full-rigged ships whose complicated rigging and 
numerous spars and yardarms formed a dark network against 
the dull leaden sky. The low dunes on shore punctuated a 
landscape that was so sandy and destitute of vegetation that 
Nora said it was as bald-headed as William Lloyd Garrison. 

‘What can they raise in such a place as that?” she asked 
contemptuously. 

“Church steeples and school towers, as you can see for 
yourself,” said Werner,” and brainy men and women capable 
of making their way in any part of the world. The landscape 
may be bald, as you say, but the minds of the people who live 
here are not ; they are as fruitful of ideas as Garrisoffis 
intellect.” 


(294) 


AIR CASTLE DON 


295 


‘Were you born here?” she asked again. 

“Why, no. What made you think that?” 

“Because you know so much.” 

“I was born in Boston.” 

“So was I ; but I might as well have been born in Africa, I 
am so ignorant; ignorant even of the very State in which I 
live.” 

“Yet you are picking up so rapidly that by the time you 
get to be as venerable as I, you will know vastly more than 
I do.” 

“How old are you?” 

“I dare not tell you, lest you should begin to ask me to give 
you some personal recollections of Noah and his family. You 
know that one’s age is not to be reckoned from the day he was 
born, but from the things he has learned. To tell the truth, I 
feel as though I had lived on this old globe several thousand 
years.” 

“That is because you read so much history. Don says 
your library is full of historical books. I should think it would 
make any one feel old to be reading about dead people so 
much. But aren’t you going to let us go on shore this 
morning?” 

“Yes; the boat is alongside now waiting for us. You must 
take off those slippers, and put on high shoes, for the sand is 
deep in Provincetown.” 

When they landed they walked on creaking plank side- 
walks, and over crossings of sand-drifts. It was grit, grit 
everywhere. Yet there were handsome houses in the scatter- 
ing town, and public buildings that would not have been out of 
place in Boston. The people whom they met instead of 
appearing as though they had rusted because of their isolation 
and constant exposure to salt air, looked as though they had 


296 


AIR CASTLE DON 


used the sand about them to keep themselves burnished to the 
highest degree. Indeed, what with their own seamen who 
sailed unto the uttermost parts of the earth, and the shipping 
that came into their port from all parts of the world, they were 
all as wide-awake as if they had done nothing but sail the seas 
from the beginning of their existence. And the smallest 
urchin who stood on the street corner, if spoken to, was more 
than likely to reply in nautical terms full of allusions to ship- 
ping and to the ends of the earth as well. The seafaring men 
who waddled through the sandy thoroughfares in great num- 
bers, with the free manners of high spirits, added to the wide- 
awake appearance of the population. 

“Why should people want to settle in such a place as this?” 
asked Dorothy, glancing discontentedly over the sandy land- 
scape. 

“Cape Cod was built in the ocean to give Massachusetts a 
handy place to fish from, and there were some people in the 
olden times who had sense enough to appreciate what had been 
done for them. Here, they are in the very midst of codfish- 
dom and whaledom, not to say anything of the smaller fry that 
can be tossed from the water upon the gridiron or into the 
frying pan whenever they are wanted. Breathing so much salt 
air, eating so much fish and smelling so many fishy odors are 
among the things that have made the people so brainy and 
intellectual. 

“To keep the ministers up to the proper intellectual stand- 
ard, they used to pay the greater part of their salary in fish, 
and to increase their faith in Providence, they were allowed a 
part of every whale that came on shore. If one of these big 
fish happened to come ashore on Sunday during sermon time, 
the minister didn’t stop to pronounce the benediction, but ran 


AIR CASTLE DON 297 

a race with the congregation to the water-side to make sure of 
getting what the Lord had sent for their benefit.” 

‘‘I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Gipsy, very bluntly, for she 
was set for the defence of the ministry. 

“I know that it seems like a whaling big story, but it is set 
down in the books, and what is in the books cannot be disbe- 
lieved without committing heresy. There is an old minister 
living here now who, in his preaching days, was pastor of the 
Congregational Church. One Sunday when he had just 
reached the sixth of the fourteen heads of his sermon, a man 
rushed to the door and shouted that a whale had grounded on 
the south shore. The minister said, ‘Beloved, let us make sure 
of the whale now, the remainder of the sermon is so well 
pickled it will keep for another time.’ 

“They got large quantities of oil from that whale’s blubber, 
and the preacher was so well satisfied with his share that the 
following Sunday, instead of giving them the other eight heads 
of the interrupted sermon, he gave them a spick-span new one 
directly out of his own head upon the text, ‘They shall suck of 
the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the 
sands.’ He described all the kinds of fish that swim about 
Cape Cod, and all the varieties of clams that are hid in the 
sands and mud-flats. Being very fond of clam chowder, he 
was especially eloquent, while preaching, concerning the treas- 
ures hid in the sand. Nevertheless two of his deacons com- 
plained that the sermon was two hours longer than it needed 
to have been, and they said it smacked so strongly of fish and 
clams, that it made them feel fishy and clammy all over. They 
thought the church ought to have a pastor who knew more 
about the New Jerusalem than he did about Cape Cod, and 
they tried to get up a faction that would assist them in securing 
a more spiritually minded minister. Notwithstanding the dea- 


298 


AIR CASTLE DON 


cons^ pious efforts, the preacher remained pastor thirty years 
after the death of one of them and twenty-two years after the 
death of the other. And he is now maintaining a vigorous old 
age upon the remembrance of his triumph over the rams of his 
flock.’’ 

“Did he get rich off of the dead whales that came on shore 
on Sunday?” asked Gipsy, with great interest. 

“Not very; if we may judge from the looks of his cottage 
where he now lives with his wife, and which we passed on our 
way up.” 

“Let’s come ashore to-night and serenade him?” suggested 
Dorothy, with lively sympathy. “A preacher that can survive 
two contrary deacons as long as he did, ought to be noticed.” 

The suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm, but its scope 
was much enlarged. They were all good singers, and music 
was one of their chief divertisements. The evening was clear 
and still, and a high full moon encouraged their purpose. The 
actors’ wardrobe still remained on board of The Lady. After 
dressing themselves in the most grotesque robings, they could 
find, they rowed among the fleet, where their songs were 
received with round after round of cheers. The tars that were 
not members of secret fraternities supposed they were being 
serenaded by a delegation of Masons or Odd Fellows from the 
shore. The tinsel of the robes glittered so brightly in the 
moonlight that the ornaments were supposed to be of silver 
and gold, while the cut glass jewels were taken for gems of 
the first water. 

On landing, they were followed by a crowd to the old min- 
ister’s cottage. Two of their songs were merry, two senti- 
mental and the other two, solemn. Don presented the old 
pastor with ten dollars from his trust fund, and the Vonberg 
brothers added twenty more from their private purse. The 


AIR CASTLE DON 


299 


recipient of their generosity was so moved that he felt himself 
under obligations to say something adequately appreciative of 
their courtesies. He said that he was so deaf he could not 
hear much of their singing, but he had sight enough left to be 
much edified by their brilliant appearance, and there was life 
enough left in his heart to enable him to feel profoundly grate- 
ful to them for their unexpected kindness toward him. Then 
in a half humorous, half pathetic way, he concluded by saying 
that, although he had nothing in the house to offer them by 
way of a collation, he could at least dismiss them with the best 
of his pulpit benedictions. He accordingly pronounced the 
longest one he could remember. 

The next morning there was a ringing chorus of yo-heavos, 
a resounding clatter of chain-cables and a magnificent flutter- 
ing of white canvas, when the fleet of ninety-three vessels of 
all shapes and sizes made ready to round the Cape. Although 
they all left within a short time of each other, the differences 
in their speed soon scattered them into a long line upon the 
ocean blue. The Lady of The Lake proved to be the smallest, 
swiftest and proudest vessel of the whole fleet. Captain Small 
was so elated by the way she showed her heels and took the 
lead, that he ordered up every inch of bunting she possessed. 
At noon he left the other vessels and laid his course toward a 
low blue island that is about thirty miles from the mainland. 

“What country is that?” asked Gipsy, when the steeples and 
houses began to loom against the sky. 

“That isn’t any country at all,” replied Werner; “that is 
Nantucket. Have you never heard of it before?” 

“Nantucket! Why, that is my father’s birth place!” she 
exclaimed with delight. “I would rather go there than to go 
to Jerusalem. And I would rather have been born there than 
in Boston.” 


800 


AIR CASTLE DON 


‘‘Why?” asked Werner, with interest. 

“Because — Oh, because; you know!” she replied flounder- 
ingly. 

“Because it is so far removed from the mainland and its 
hypocrisies and follies that its distance lends enchantment to 
the view?” said Werner, coming to her relief. 

“Of course, that’s it exactly!” she retorted sarcastically. 

The celebrated old whaling town was not at that time the 
busy place it had formerly been, nor was it yet the fashionable 
resort it was destined to become. It seemed to be in the last 
stages of abandonment and decay. Costly and attractive 
houses were sold for a mere song, and not a few of them were 
being removed piecemeal to the mainland. Old whaling ships 
saturated with oil and redolent of blubber and scraps — ships 
that had voyaged to the far Pacific and had made comfortable 
fortunes for their former owners, were now ignobly rotting at 
their docks. Warehouses and stores that were once packed 
with goods of great value were given up to the reign of rats 
and mice. Arrivals, once so numerous, were now so seldom 
witnessed that when The Lady of The Lake crossed the historic 
sandbar and tied up to the dock, half the juveniles of the town 
rushed pell mell to see her. Not a few of the older people of 
both sexes trailed down after them and in their quaintly quiet 
way, welcomed the visitors to their “island home.” On its 
becoming known that Gipsy and her brother were of island 
stock, all the Williamses on the island claimed relationship, 
and thenceforth the latchstring was out to the whole party to 
go and come as they pleased. Receptions followed in such 
swift succession that it became a relief to the young people to 
get on board again. But these receptions must not be con- 
founded with the functions that pass under the same name in 
the later phases of society. Our receptions are occasions on 


AIR CASTLE DON 


301 


which people promiscuously '‘gather, gabble, giggle, gobble 
and git.” They are a sort of annual washing in which the 
guests allow the hostess to make use of them as the soap by 
which she washes her hands of her annual social obligations. 
After “the social event” she goes to bed so much fatigued that, 
like other washer-women, she dreams the whole night long of 
washing-boards and suds, and is haunted by the fear lest the 
clothes-line should show a deficiency in the final listing. An 
old-time Nantucket reception was characterized by the grace 
of cordiality, the refinement of sincerity, the charm of simplic- 
ity and the spontaneousness of nature. It was a spring bub- 
bling from the heart and not a system of Holly water works by 
which courtesy is forced through the iron or leaden pipes of 
fashionable customs. 

Even the quakers, those saints in drab, whose ancestors 
were whipped at the tails of the carts of our forefathers for 
choosing to serve God in their own way, did all they could to 
add pleasure to the stay of the young visitors. 

Bert, who was a good violinist, went into a shop of one of 
these quaint folk and enquired for a piece of rosin. “Not a 
very large piece,” he said, “for I only want to rosin my fiddle- 
bow.” 

“Thy fiddle-bow!” exclaimed the quaker shop-keeper, with 
hesitation if not displeasure. “I cannot sell thee rosin for such 
a purpose. But there it is,” he smilingly added as he placed a 
conveniently sized piece upon the counter; “if thee chosest to 
take it for nothing, thee will be welcome to the responsibility.” 

“It was the most delicate way of getting around an incon- 
veniently conscientious corner I ever heard of,” said Bert, 
relating the incident when he returned to The Lady. “And 
he looked at me so slyly from his great eyes, that I had to put 
my hand to my mouth to keep from giggling in his face. He 


302 


AIR CASTLE DON 


said ‘come again’ in such a kindly way that I wanted to sit 
down and have a long chat with him, I wonder what he 
would say if he were to hear me scraping off some of those jig 
tunes I play. Gipsy comes at me like a porcupine when I 
play them. He probably would rebuke me solemnly with his 
mouth, and at the same time laugh at me with his eyes.” 

An old song which relates the experiences of two young 
lovers says: “They loved one another for they’d nothing else 
to do.” Perhaps a somewhat similar reason accounted for the 
abounding hospitality of the old time Nantucketer. There 
seemed to be nothing else to do in the way of employment or 
amusement, and hence, for the benefit of the young visitors, 
there were clam-bakes and chowders, codfish frys and bluefish 
feasts, catboat trips along the shores, and horsecart excursions 
upon the moors and to the wild surf beach at seven mile 
Sconset. Curiosities and bric-a-brac, shells and whale-teeth 
were given to the guests in such generous profusion that the 
cabin of The Lady of the Lake looked like a small museum. 

Alas for the sad transformations wrought by time and civil- 
ization. There is a new generation at Nantucket now. A 
change has come over the spirit of its dreams since it became 
a watering place and a resort for city people. A stranger 
happening upon its shores now is charged a nickel for a yes or 
no, a dime for a direction of any kind, a quarter for a step or 
two of guidance, a half dollar for the lifting of a trunk, a dollar 
for an hour of time, and the portable curiosities that are exhib- 
ited for sale are held at church-fair prices. Go to Nantucket 
if you want to see something new — or rather, something old — 
under the sun, but go prepared to be estimated by the fatness 
of your pocket book and by the amount of squeezing you can 
undergo. The ancient glory of Nantucket has gone the way 
of all the earth. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


303 


It was in vain that the Vonbergs protested that they were 
only clothiers, and that Don told them he lived in an attic, and 
that Bert avowed that his mother kept a boarding house, and 
that the attention they were receiving was altogether dispro- 
portionate to their rank and circumstances. They were well- 
bred young people loving the sea which held the island in its 
embrace, and they practiced the sailing art by which so many 
Nantucketers had circumnavigated the globe, and this was 
recommendation enough for Nantucket society which, by the 
way, was famous for its intelligence and refinement as it was 
for its warmth and simplicity. 

The United States mail reached the island when weather 
permitted. In winter, weeks passed before any tidings were 
received from the outside world. Boston papers arrived in 
bunches and were as scrupulously preserved as if they were 
sacred writings. The “Nantucket Metropolitan'’ reproduced 
the Boston notice of the departure of The Lady of The Lake, 
and the “Transcript’s” announcement that she carried the 
Grand Keyman of the new club which had taken the place of the 
old one. Withal, there were quotations from Boston papers 
containing other items concerning Don and his friends. All 
Nantucket began to search its old files for matter referring to 
Don’s adventures and experiences, and they so pieced the inci- 
dents together that the whole island was agog with the idea 
that they were “entertaining angels unawares.” 

“We must get out of this as soon as possible,” said Don 
when the old news had taken a fresh start in Nantucket circles 
and was producing an additional and an intensified round of 
festivities and civilities. When Nora asked why they should 
get out, his reply was: “We are getting altogether too much 
cream for the amount of milk we carry in our pans.” 

The wharf was crowded when the vessel cast off her lines. 


304 


AIR CASTLE DON 


and after Nora had almost dislocated her arms waving her 
adieus to the inhabitants of her father’s birthplace, she said to 
those around her: '‘Nantucket has given me such an enlarge- 
ment of the heart that hereafter Boston will be too small to 
hold me.” 


CHAPTER XXX. 


AS THEY SAIEED, AS THEY SAILED. 

So runs the refrain of one of the old songs that celebrated 
the doings of Captain Kidd and his pirates bad and bold. And 
so ran the refrain of the song of memory when the participants 
in the trip of The Lady of The Lake began to wrinkle up under 
the too familiar touch of Old Father Time.' Those remote 
days which seem to be as far away as the days of Eden formed 
the golden age of their existence. 

As they sailed out of Nantucket into Martha’s Vineyard 
Sound, they found themselves in the company of more than 
a hundred coasters. 

And as they sailed over the glittering waters, gently 
rising and falling with the swell of the sea, and slightly careen- 
ing to the push of the wind, and graduallysighting the blue coast 
line of the southern coast of Cape Cod and the northern one 
of Martha’s Vineyard, Dorothy and Don, and Nora and Bert 
experienced such an elevation of feeling that the enthusiasm of 
their language exhausted all the superlatives at their command. 

Donny, the squirrel, had the freedom of the deck with the 
rest of the passengers, and, delighting in the clear sunlight 
and bracing breeze he leaped from the companionway to the 
mainboom where, working his way to the throat-rope of the 
mainsail, he scampered up the sail, nor stopped until he 
reached the crosstree, and, steadying himself by the topmast 
stay, flipped his tail in triumphant glee, notwithstanding the 

(305) 


306 


AIR CASTLE DON 


anxious glances of his friends below. With such transcendent 
things as masts and ropes within reach, he was no longer 
dependent upon such puny conveniences as passenger-legs for 
climbing facilities. While those below were ventilating their 
knowledge of Captain Kidd and Commodore Paul Jones, and 
Admiral Drake and Admiral Frobisher and other warriors of 
the sea, and were growing romantic over Captain Cook, the 
great circumnavigator, and Columbus, the greater discoverer 
of America, Donny in his lofty lookout held his peace, for the 
gentle swaying of the mast set him to thinking of the trees of 
the forest and of the rustling songs of the woods and streams. 
And truth to say, some of his thoughts, like those described 
by the poet Wordsworth, were “too deep for tears.” Yet, if he 
had been in the woods some fool of a brainless boy at the 
butt of a gun might have been aiming its destructive muzzle at 
him for the sake of amusing a mind too mendicantly poor for 
an infirmary, or too idiotically weak for an insane asylum. 

All night long they sailed in the entrancing moonlight. 
Not till ‘the wee sma’ hours’ began to make their eyelids heavy 
did they cease to watch the lights along the shore, and those 
also that glimmered from the riggings of the fleet of coasters. 
But for the dark lines of the coast which served to anchor 
them to reality, the white spectral sails of the vessels would 
have made them feel as though they were voyaging to the land 
of dreams and ghosts. 

When they came on deck in the morning they were passing 
the western shores of Elizabeth Island. 

“Elizabeth Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket!” 
exclaimed Nora, whose eyes dilated with inquisitiveness. 
“How did the islands get their nam.es?” 

Werner seldom confessed to ignorance of anything, but in 
this case even his inventive powers were at fault and he was 


AIR CASTLE DON 


307 


obliged, like some other wise ignoramuses, to say: “I don’t 
know.” 

Captain Small, like every other coasting captain famdliar 
with those waters, was ready with his answer. 

“Well, it was this way, miss,” he said: “There was an old 
chap who lived in New Bedford who once owned all three of 
the islands. He had three daughters; one was named Eliza- 
beth, another Martha, and the third, Nancy. When he was 
about to die, he gave Elizabeth the first choice of the islands. 
She chose the one that was nearest to New Bedford, and the 
island took her name. The second choice fell to Martha, and 
she took the next nearest, and as it had a great many wild 
grapevines on it, it became known as Martha’s Vineyard. 

“The next morning after the old man’s death a distant rela- 
tive asked Martha what was done with the third island, and 
was answered testily and shortly: ‘Nan tuk it.’ And ever 
after the island was called Nantucket. The whaling aristo- 
crats of the island added the ‘c’ to the spelling to make it look 
like an Indian name.” 

“Really, now, is that why my father’s birthplace .was called 
Nantucket?” asked Gipsy, intently. 

“I wouldn’t swear to it, miss, but that is the way every 
coaster accounts for the name. Sailors in general are apt to 
tell yarns, but the coasters are famous for telling the truth. If 
any one can catch me lying he is at liberty to call me a liar. 
If it had been known that your father was to have been born on 
that island, it would probably have been called Williamsport 
or Billtown. Names is mighty queer things, you know.” 

“They should have called the place Petersport,” said Wil- 
helm; “for the people are the descendents of Peter.” 

“Peter who?” asked Captain Small. 

“Peter the Apostle; he was a fisherman, you know.” 


308 


AIR CASTLE DON 


While Small was getting ready to wrinkle his face by way 
of a feeble smile, Gipsy interrupted him with: “Did Peter 
catch whales, like the Nantucketers?” 

“I don’t know for a certainty,” Wilhelm retorted; “but I 
know that the prophet Jonah caught a whale, and so far as I 
can judge, Peter was a better fisherman than ever Jonah was.” 

“I thought that the whale caught Jonah?” said the captain, 
a bit uncertain in his Scriptural knowledge. 

“It is my impression that they were both badly caught,” 
Wilhelm replied, imitating the captain’s hesitating speech. 

“Wilhelm Vonberg!” said Gipsf, in her most solemn man- 
ner, “Father Taylor says that the man who tries to use the 
Bible for a peg to hang his jokes upon, is sillier than the witless 
woman who tried to hang her washing on the horns of the 
new moon.” She would have said more but for the squirrel, 
which sprang from the deck into her lap and began to tease 
her for his morning’s ration of almond nuts that she always 
carried in her pocket for him. Not content with this, as soon 
as he had disposed of his allowance, he crept under the corner 
of her cloak and drawing it tightly around him, laid down for 
a nap. 

“That is a sure sign of foul weather,” said Don, who was 
observing his movements. “When he does that this early in 
the day, you may depend upon having a storm before night.” 

“He agrees with the barometer, but it’s mighty curious 
how a critter like that knows anything about salt-water 
weather,” said Captain Small, dropping his eyelids and squint- 
ing professionally all around the horizon. “There’s an eastern 
wind somewhere for sure, and a sort of a snorter at that. But 
being fair for us I shall not go into port so long as the rest of 
the fleet keep on the course. Not one of them shows sign of 
dodging in thus far.” 


AIR CASTLE DON’ 


309 


At two o’clock the “easterner” came along hale and hearty, 
snorting like a grampus, spouting water like a whale, and play- 
ing with the waves like a porpoise. It made The Lady come to a 
double reef in her sails and drenched her as if she needed wash- 
ing, but withal it sent her bowling through the water like a 
swordfish. The fleet put itself in trim for the visit and danced 
along as merrily as if it were sweating through the last figures 
of a cotillion or waltz. Not a vessel swerved from its course. 

Dorothy and Gipsy remained on deck with the sterner sex 
until they began to get chilled, and then they went below, 
where, in their berths, they were lulled asleep by the cradle- 
like motions of the vessel and the measured rhythm of the 
swashing waters as they passed by the hull. 

When they again awoke. The Lady of The Lake was off 
the Palisades on the Hudson River. The majesty of the cliffs, 
the sheen of the waters, the variety of craft, the freshness of 
the air, the beauty of the hills, the blueness of the sky, the bril- 
liancy of the sunlight and the magnificence ' of the dwellings 
and grounds on the eastern shore filled Gipsy with astonish- 
ment and delight. 

“Is this Heaven?” she asked of Captain Small, who stood at 
the wheel, trying to get the better of a saucy little coasting 
schooner which had shown an inclination to outsail The Lady 
of The Lake ever since she first hove in sight off Gay Head on 
Martha’s Vineyard. 

“No, miss, this ain’t Heaven; it’s only the Hudson River; 
and, according to my reckoning, it’s a good ways off from 
Heaven,” said the captain, in a matter-of-fact way, and keeping 
a sharp lookout on the cute coaster which was doing her best 
to get abeam so as to blanket the sails of The Lady and thus 
steal a chance to forge ahead of her. 

“That’s a pesky craft,” he added, but addressing himself to 


810 


AIR CASTLE DON 


Werner. “Hoist our topsail, and staysail and then if The 
Lady doesn’t forge ahead of her, I’ll have to say that she 
doesn’t know her business.” 

No sooner was the extra canvas up than the rival vessel 
put on every extra stitch she could muster, notwithstanding it 
was so squally that light sails were likely to be blown away at 
any moment. But The Lady soon showed her superiority 
over the coaster and passed ahead, her lighter bulk giving her 
the advantage over her competitor. 

“When did we pass New York?” asked Dorothy, now that 
the excitement was over. 

“A little after four o’clock this morning,” said Werner. 
“We had both the wind and tide with us when we entered Hell 
Gate and got through that awful place without the least 
trouble.” 

“Why didn’t you call us so that we could see the city as we 
passed by?” Dorothy asked wdth some disappointment. 

“I did think of doing it, but Wilhelm said no; and I guess 
he was right; there was nothing to be seen but a lot of masts, 
roofs, chimmey pots and steeples, and I should think that you, 
who were born and brought up in Boston had had enough of 
that kind of scenery.” 

“I would rather wake out of a morning slumber and find 
myself sailing in the midst of such scenery as this than to look 
upon any city in the world,” said Gipsy, with great sincerity. 
“People who live surrounded by so much beauty and grandeur 
ought to be good enough to be translated directly to Heaven 
without any change,” she added, with deep earnestness. 

“Which the same they ain’t by no manner of means,” 
exclaimed the captain forcibly. “I’ve sailed up and down this 
river seventy-three times, and I know it as well as I know the 
corns on my toes. Every prospect pleases and only man is 


AIR CASTLE DON 


811 


vile, as the old hymn says. This ain’t no Nantucket, where 
everybody tries to do you good. The river pirates are so thick 
that if we didn’t keep a sharp lookout they’d steal everything 
from us from stem to stern in no time ; and the land sharks are 
so eager to take advantage of you that they charge three prices 
for everything they sell and every favor they do to you. If 
you was to fall from them Palisades and should happen to be 
picked up alive, the first thing the’d ask would be how much 
you’d give them for carrying you to a doctor. It’s a regular 
road to Jericho. Seeing as how there are lots of churches 
along the river there must be some saints among them, but 
none on ’em shows themselves to us coasters; leastwise, not 
very often. It seems to me that where the people is thickest 
and the country oldest, there the sinners is the wustest and the 
vilest. They say this country was fust settled by the Dutch; 
I don’t know much about that race, but perhaps that accounts 
for the lot of cussedness that’s laying round loose all the way 
up and down this river.” 

“Dorothy and Wilhelm and myself are closely related to the 
Dutch,” said Werner, laughing at the blushes of indignation 
suffusing his sister’s face; “but we do not feel particularly 
wicked on that account. I know that the Connecticut Puri- 
tans on being asked why they cultivated tobacco when they 
were so much opposed to its use among themselves said they 
were raising it to ‘sell to the Ungodly Dutch who lived on the 
Hudson River;’ yet those old Knickerbockers were the salt of 
New York as the Pilgrims were the salt of New England.” 

“The Dutch were fine table salt, and the Pilgrims coarse 
pickle salt,” said Dorothy from whose cheeks the colors of 
indignation had not yet faded away. 

“If the Dutch were ever the salt of the earth in any shape 
theyVe lost their savor,” the captain retorted. “Them that 


812 


AIR CASTLE DON 


I’ve run afoul of was mostly made up of hard cider, lager beer, 
and forty horse-power tobacco, and kept from vanishing into 
nothing by hoops of rusty genealogy and ancestral vanity. 
They are so stuck up that they have formed a little denomin- 
ation all by themselves, and they call it The Dutch Reformed 
Church. If you go into one of their meetin’ houses you’ll see 
their coat of arms hung up by the pulpit, done up in orange 
and black, and with so many animals pictured in it cuttin’ up so 
many antics it looks like a circus poster. And they have a cat- 
echism of their own cut up in fifty- two parts so that there can 
be a dose of it for every Sunday in the year. They say the 
Ten Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer and The Apostle’s 
Creed every Sunday of their lives, but in their opinion that 
circus picture knocks the stuffing out of all of them. The 
fust time I saw that escutcheon, as they call it, hanging by the 
pulpit as though there was no place for the cross where it was, 
it stuck in my crop like a herring bone. And I jest said to 
myself, if there wasn’t another church this side of the New 
Jerusalem for a feller to get into but the Reformed Church I’d 
go into a smoke house and get my religion there before I’d 
tie my hawser to a concern what’s towed along and kept 
afloat by a yaller escutcheon or any other kind of scutching.” 

Don was indignant at the captain’s tirade, and all the 
more so because he knew that, although the Vonbergs were 
members of Doctor Beecher’s church, their father and mother 
were originally members of the Dutch Reformed Church, and 
still had a great reverence for that denomination, notwithstand- 
ing it was so small numerically. It was therefore with consid- 
erable heat he said: “Captain Small, your prejudices have 
swallowed your common sense; the Dutch Reformed Church 
is the best and most influential denomination on the Hudson 


AIR CASTLE DON 


813 


River, and its history is far more interesting than the history of 
the Pilgrim Fathers.” 

At this shot, Dorothy clapped her hands with vigor, which 
so offended the captain that he sealed his lips hermetically, 
notwithstanding both Bert and Gipsy did their best to start 
him off upon another controversial flight. Wilhelm and Wer- 
ner were as much amused by Small’s sudden reticence as they 
had been by his previous volubility. Withal, they were grate- 
ful to Don for dropping such a hot shot into the captain’s vest 
pocket. They were an exceptionally ' broadminded pair of 
young men, but they reverenced the faith of their parents alto- 
gether too much to hear it lightly spoken of with indifference. 

For awhile there was golden silence, punctuated only by 
exclamations of enthusism and admiration elicited by the mag- 
nificence and sublimity of the scenery by which they were sur- 
rounded. Besides the glorious vistas of landscape opening up 
on every hand there were the innumerable jaunty coasters with 
their white sails flecking the river in every direction, going and 
coming, some loaded and some light. An immense river 
steamer passed by loaded with a great crowd of passengers. 
Pleasure craft of every description flitted to and fro like birds 
skimrning the brilliant waters, and countless row-boats darted 
hither and thither like water-bugs upon a meadowy brook. 

Presently Gipsy’s sentimental thoughts and emotions were 
snuffed out like a candle by the sight of a floating village which 
notwithstanding it was over a quarter of a mile in length, was 
being slowly towed down the river by five puffing, wheezing 
steam tugs. The village consisted of canal boats, of which she 
counted one hundred and twenty-seven, fastened together by 
hawsers. Nearly all had entire families on them who carried 
on their domestic avocations with as much freedom as if they 
were in cottages on the land. The day being sunny, not a few 


314 


AIR CASTLE DON 


were washing their clothes in plain sight despite the command- 
ment which forbids such things. Other boats were trimmed 
from stem to stern with the fluttering lines of clothing that had 
already gone through the purifying process. Here and there 
men and women could be seen stepping from one barge to 
another making calls upon one another, and doubtless 
exchanging such gossip as might be peculiar to the watery 
town. 

To Gipsy the floating village was at first a mystery; then it 
seemed the most romantic of all things; but by and by it 
appeared tragical that so many people, young and old, male 
and female, should be living such an unsettled floating life. At 
last, however, under the touch of Wilhelm’s humor, the quaint 
combination resolved itself into a grotesque oddity and a ludic- 
rous comedy. The old fashions of the women, the peculiar 
amusements of the children, the lordly listlessness of the men 
broken now and then with snatches of broken dialect, wild 
songs and rollicking revelry, and the picturesque groups of 
sleepers scattered in confusion here and there, kept the hinges 
of Gipsy’s mind swinging back and forth between unbounded 
astonishment and irrepressible amusement. 

Three of these floating villages were passed in the course of 
two hours; two were bound down, and one, up. The barges 
belonging to the one going up were without cargoes, and 
looked so light that they resembled an island of immense 
wooden bubbles seeking some place where they might burst 
into nothing. 

‘Tf Father Taylor were to see a fleet like that,” said Bert, 
“he’d find his salt-water dictionary entirely inadequate for his 
needs. He could no more turn those canal boats into figures 
of speech for sailor sermons than he could turn hog-troughs 
into Indian canoes. I have heard of ^the raging canal,’ but I 


AIR CASTLE DON 


315 


didn^t know that they had a rage for turning out such floating 
nightmares of giant cofflns roped together in that style. It is 
enough to give one the delirium tremens to look at them. 

He was better pleased by the scenes at West Point, where 
a day was spent in roaming through the grounds and sur- 
roundings of that famous military school. But all minor 
objects of attraction were reduced into insignificance when, 
continuing their voyage, they followed the river to where it 
cleaves the mountains and stormy old Dunderberg from 
beneath his nightcap of cloud looks frowningly down and with 
spiteful gusts of breath marks his displeasure against the end- 
less fleets of money makers and pleasure seekers that throng 
through the wild pass that he in his selfish isolation would have 
consecrated to everlasting solitude and silence. So severe 
were his aspects and so threatening his rugged cliffs that the 
Lady of The Lake voyagers felt as though they were intruding 
into a sanctum sanctorum which Nature had reserved for com- 
munion with herself. 

On reaching Catskill they left the vessel and spent four days 
upon the purple heights of the Catskill Mountains, where, four 
thousand feet above the sea, they climbed, wandered, won- 
dered and dreamed among the glens, the woods and clouds 
with such lightness of soul they almost felt as if in a disem- 
bodied state they had reached the shores of another world. 
When, on the descent, they halted at the old Rip Van Winkle 
House and rambled up the darkly shadowed glen where, as it 
is alleged by Irving, Rip met the little men and by sipping 
from one of their little kegs, was put to sleep for twenty years, 
they were more than half inclined to think the story literally 
true. They had done so much dreaming themselves that they 
felt that they were twenty years older than when they started 
from Boston, and they were almost afraid that when they 


316 


AIR CASTLE DON 


returned nobody would be able to recognize them. It was 
with relief that they descended from the clouds and felt the 
deck beneath their feet again and sailed into matter-of-fact 
Albany and listened to the hum of an every-day world once 


more. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


ON HANNAH SCHRKKCHUM*S ISI.AND. 

Don and Bert went into a barber’s shop to get their hair 
cut. Don did not take particular notice of the man who was 
clipping his locks, but the man took notice of him from the 
moment of his entrance. After snipping off a lock with an 
emphatic movement of the scissors, he drew back a step or 
two, and looking his customer in the face with a keenly scrut- 
inizing glance, said: “Methinks I’ve seen this face and head 
before. Yet my memory is a false mistress that plays me 
scurvy tricks. But stay! Wast thou ever guest to a jailor, 
or listener to a just judge who spoke thee well, though thou 
wast garbed in rags and clasped the hand of Sorrow in a prison 
cell? Ah! speak not. I have it! Have it as I have the vaga- 
bonds of thought, that with vague hints of things that once 
have been come back to give me torment ’fore my time. Give 
me thy hand, thou partner of my grief, for thou art Don Don- 
alds, who erstwhiles heard me sing the song of memory in 
prison, and parted from me because the pangs of hunger bade 
us part.” 

It was the actor with whom Don spent the night in prison, 
and Don was glad to know that he had at last settled down to 
something tangible, although the language he used seemed to 
have lost nothing of its gaseousness. This last, however, he 
soon discovered was only assumed as prompted by the associa- 
tions of the past. 


(317) 


318 


AIR CASTLE DON 


am making a good living,” he said, laughing like a sane 
man; “and what is a deuced sight better, I have married the 
dearest girl in all the world, and she has so much good sense 
that I haven’t made a fool of myself for more than a year and a 
half, if you will except the manner in which I spoke to you just 
now.” 

Reminders of Don’s former trials in Albany met him at 
every step, but neither sting nor shame attended them. And 
when his companions insisted upon being shown the places 
where he had suffered, he complied without hesitation, and 
carried them to the prison cell where he passed a night, and to 
the old church portico where he lodged with a stray dog, and 
to the shop of Abraham Isaacs, the Jew pawnbroken, where 
he had been turned away as a thief for inquiring after the con- 
tents of his stolen trunk. The old Israelite happened to be 
standing in front of his door as they passed by, and Gipsy gave 
him a glance from her dark eyes that was indignant enough to 
frighten a stone, and she would have halted to give him a lec- 
ture had not Bert hurried her on by main force. 

“I am not sorry I became so hard pushed in this city,” said 
Don. • “Boys are apt to be thoughtless and selfish; I am sure 
I was before I came here. Albany gave me lessons it was 
necessary for me to learn, and I would not have shown you 
where I learned them had I not been desirous of reminding 
myself of them again. I am going now to see if that drinking 
fountain is still in order. It is on the other side of the river, 
and too far away for a walk of pleasure. Bert may go with me, 
and the rest of you may wander where you please while we are 
absent.” 

But his companions insisted upon going with him to the 
roundhouse, where they found the fountain dedicated to the 
memory of Jake Cullum and Bob Flanger, looking as bright as 


AIR CASTLE DON 


319 


the day it was put up. The men made conscience of keeping 
it in order. There was no one present that Don knew, and as 
the visitors gave no explanation of their presence, they caused 
no small amount of wonder and curiosity. 

Don, now accompanied only by Bert, called on the Flanger 
and Cullum families, which, notwithstanding the death of the 
bread winners, were getting along quite comfortably. Don 
received a welcome that made his eyes water, and the assur- 
ance that the assistance he gave them at his former visit had so 
tided them over shoals that ever since they had been able to 
make their own way without difficulty. 

When they returned to the vessel Don found a pair of 
reporters on board, and as a result, and in spite of his own 
reticence, the arrival of The Lady of The Lake with the “Boy 
Philanthropist” and his party of Boston friends was chron- 
icled in flaring headlines of long locals. 

That afternoon the party left for Saratoga, where three days 
were spent at the springs. When they came back Peter Piper 
had a long story to tell of his trials during their absence. The 
newspaper notices had caused a great influx of visitors to The 
Lady, and both Peter and the captain had been subjected to 
numberless interrogations. Small said that so many questions 
had been asked that he hadn’t a single civil answer left. 

“Americans live more by the questions they ask than they 
do by the sweat o’ their brow,” said Peter. “They hae kept 
me gaeing frae marnin’ till night. Some were that spierin’ 
they wanted to know if we had ony lovers in the company. 
On a’ sich I frowned and glowered mightily. To more than 
one I says: talebearer revealeth secrets, but he that is of a 

faithful spirit concealeth the matter.’ See Proverbs eleven and 
thirteen. They didna mind the hot Scripture shot no more 
than if it was a feather, but when I at ’em wi’ see Proverbs 


320 


AIPw CASTLE DON 


eleven and thirteen, they spiered at me as though I was some- 
thin’ uncanny, an’ cut for the wharf as if the de’il was ahind 
’em.” 

“Yes,” said the captain, laughing immoderately, “Peter’s 
reference to chapter and verse was as good as a new broom. 
It swept them ashore by the half dozen. And now,” he went 
on, “if you are ready to give the order, I’ll put The Lady where 
the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.” 

“Cast off as soon as you please,” replied Wilhelm, 
promptly, “for I am longing to get to some place where human 
nature is scarce.” 

On the down trip they would have stopped a day or two in 
New York, but when they were abreast the city the heat was 
so great they crowded canvas for the open sea. Nor did they 
pause in their voyage until, after threading a tortuous channel, 
they dropped anchor off Cotuit Port, a small hamlet on the 
south side of Cape Cod. 

The mystery of the captain’s ability to pilot his way among 
so many crooks and shallows, was solved to Don, when he 
learned that Cotuit Port was Small’s birthplace and home, and 
that he was so enamoured with this part of Barnstable County 
that even its defects were virtues in his sight. 

Disembarking with their tents and equipments, they rowed 
oVer to “Hannah Screechum’s Island,” which lay opposite to 
Cotuit and was distant about three-quarters of a mile. Here 
was a pine covered tract of eight hundred acres surrounded 
by a narrow belt of water that gave a crooked shore line 
about five miles in extent. They encamped under the pines of 
the south shore close to several heaps of oyster shells which in 
the long ago were formed of the leavings of the aboriginal 
inhabitants. The ground was soft and dry with the accumula- 
tions of grey moss and brown pine-needles. The air was sweet 


AIR CASTLE DON 


321 


with the odors of the pines and of the broad green leaves of 
the trailing arbutus, and cool and bracing under the shade 
where ocean breezes played at will. The Seapuit River, a nar- 
row tide stream, and Dead Neck, a narrower strip of sand 
beach, gave a touch of variety to the isolated scene without 
interfering with the view of the gloriously amethystine sea. 
Fifteen miles away they could discern the shores of Martha’s 
Vineyard, and if there had been ambition enough left to climb 
the tallest tree, glimpses through a glass would have revealed 
the whereabouts of redolent Nantucket. 

“You are nine miles distant from any railroad or tele- 
graph,” said Captain Small, with evident satisfaction. The 
people of Cotuit Port are so accustomed to minding their own 
business that there need be no fear of them. A mile or so 
north of you is the Village of Osterville, whose people are so 
slow that they will never take the trouble to come down here. 
So here you are as much out of the world as if you were clams 
in a mud-flat. There won’t be even a reporter to pry into your 
shells. And by the way, them Ostervillians is so stuck up in 
their notions that they’ve been trying to call this Paradise 
Island and all that sort of hifalutin thing, and the next we know 
they’ll dub Dead Neck, Blue Bell Terrace because the wild 
peavines blossom there. Some of them has relatives in Boston 
and that’s where all them notions come from. I ’spect that 
one of these days them Bostonians will come down along this 
coast like the frogs went into Egypt and then their cologne- 
bottle cottages will spile every nateral thing that we’ve got. 
But don’t you forgit that this is Hannah Screechum’s Island, 
and that that there spit of sand is Dead Neck, and that they’ll 
carry them names till every mother’s son of the old settlers is 
dead and buried.” 


322 


AIR CASTLE DON 


“But how did the old settlers come to give such curdling 
names to these places?” asked Gipsy. 

Small was rather nonplussed by the directness of the ques- 
tion, but managed to say: “Oh, there was a hidden treasure 
and a murdered man, and a killed woman besides, whose name 
was Hannah, and who set up an awful screeching every time 
anyone tried to find the treasure. There must have been some 
truth in the story, ’cos if there’d been no sech thing, there’d 
be no sech story.” 

“Does Hannah ever do any screeching on the island now?” 
asked Dorothy, who betrayed little respect for the captain’s 
narrative, and less for his logic. 

“No. Mrs. Abby Kelly, an Ostervillian spiritualist, asked 
her why she’d given up screeching, and Hannah answered that 
she’d got tired of it, ’cos the folkses had become so allfired 
cute and intelligent that they paid no attention to ghosts and 
didn’t believe in anything else that belonged to another world. 
Abby Kelly would have taken Hannah into partnership, so as 
to convince the people that sperrits could tip chairs and knock 
tables; she would have given anything if Hannah would have 
screeched at her sittings, but Hannah said she had more than 
she could attend to in the other world without bothering her- 
self with this one.” 

“Thank you,” said Dorothy with a great show of gratitude; 
“all I wanted to be assured of Vs^as that Hannah wouldn’t do 
any screeching while we are here.” 

“You needn’t trouble yourselves about the treasure,” Small 
continued, “for although the old settlers ransacked the island 
from stem to stern, they never found anything but the oyster 
shells the Indians had forgotten to take to their Happy Hunt- 
ing Grounds, when they cleared out to make room for the 
white man. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


323 


"‘But there is other treasures that’ll be of some account. 
There’s quauhaugs if you’re a mind to wade for them, and 
clams that can be had for the digging, and lots of scup outside 
Dead Neck, and oceans of bluefish besides. When you get 
ready to go fishing. I’ll take you out in one of our fast sailing 
Cotuit boats. We can anchor for scup fishing, but you have 
to keep scudding like the dickens if you want to get hold of a 
blue fish. They’re to be caught only by making believe to run 
away from them.” 

It was not long before they verified this part of the treasure 
story to their full satisfaction, though it was at the cost of 
tender feet, soft hands and sensitive faces, which persisted in 
protesting against the exposures to which they were so ruth- 
lessly subjected. 

The camp was named Castle Indolence, after one of Thom- 
son’s poems, but the occupants kept themselves so busy with 
one thing and another that little time went to waste. They 
liked their camping on the island better than they did their 
voyage up the Hudson, because they could keep themselves so 
busy doing nothing, though they would not have missed the 
river trip for anything. 

Hearing that there was a settlement of Indians at Marsh- 
pee, not far from Cotuit Port, they hired a team at the Port 
and made an excursion to the relics of the lost tribes. They 
found the tawny faces, the high cheek bones, the straight hair 
and the black dull eyes that characterize the Indians, but these 
were about all that was left of the once famous tribes of 
Massachusetts. 

“They live like white people, with their cottages, school 
and church, and white manners and meannesses thrown in, 
and that takes all the romance out of them,” said Bert, discon- 
tentedly, after his return. “I went around and tried to find 


324 


AIR CASTLE DON 


something in the shape of an arrow, or a tomahawk or a scalp 
to buy, and they looked at me as if I were a heathen, and talked 
religion at me so fast and pointedly that I left them as soon as 
I could. One old squaw — I mean, lady — wanted to pray for 
me. I told her I had no objections to her doing it after I was 
out of sight. And then she looked at me so sadly I said she 
might go ahead at once. But for some reason or other she 
didn’t see fit to take up with my offer.” 

“She knew that you were an uncivilized, heathen white 
boy,” said Gipsy, indignantly; “that’s why she didn’t give you 
the benefit of her blessing. I wish I had been there in your 
stead.” 

“You might have been if you had not been so busy hunting 
after eagle feathers, and bead wampums and other vanities,” 
Bert retorted laughingly. 

They had not been in camp after their return more than an 
hour when a boat-load of company came into their little land- 
ing to make a call. They had come down from Osterville. 
Three of the ladies belonged to Boston, and two to the village. 
One of the gentlemen was from Boston, another was the editor 
of “The Barnstable Patriot,” and the third was from the vil- 
lage where he officiated as pastor of the Baptist Church. The 
Boston ladies knew all about Don’s career, and one of them 
was one of the anonymous contributors to the fund he had set 
aside for trust purposes. 

The editor was there to write up the party. With this 
exception the visit proved more than pleasant. The excep- 
tion, however, arose more from the modesty of the interviewed 
than from the intrusiveness of the interviewer. And in the 
end, the subjects of the editor’s search suffered little from the 
account he gave of the party. 

When the campers returned the call they discovered that 


AIR CASTLE DON 


825 


Osterville consisted af about three hundred inhabitants, whose 
houses looked as if they had been originally planted by a Cape 
Cod gale, so promiscuously were they scattered. 

“The people look as sharp as razors,” said Dorothy, “but 
what surprises me is that they have not invented more names 
for themselves. When you have said Crockers and Crosbys, 
Hallets and Lovells, Scudders and Hinckleys, you have 
exhausted the whole list of names.” 

“That’s because they marry one another so’s to keep their 
names at home,” explained Captain Small, who was bound to 
say all he could in disparagement of the rival village. Jeal- 
ousy ran high between the two places. Every stray egg that 
could be hatched to the detriment of each other was immedi- 
ately set upon and incubated. 

On Sunday Don rode with the Cotuit minister, who was to 
preach an afternoon sermon in Osterville. He was much 
pleased with the quality of the sermon and the character of the 
congregation. But during the services a Sunday school boy 
of the “Scudder persuasion” resolving that a Cotuit horse 
should not be tied to an Osterville fence, cut the exchanging 
minister’s new harness into three times the number of pieces it 
was originally designed to have. Without a murmer, the min- 
ister put things together as best he could and drove home talk- 
ing as cheerfully as was possible under the circumstances. 
The boy, although well known, escaped punishment for his 
offense because his father was a local church official ; he never, 
however, got rid of the criminal disposition which prompted 
his act. Folly was bound up in his hide and he was an object 
of contempt to all who had the misfortune to know him in his 
subsequent life. The very nails with which he was in the habit 
of scratching people, turned inward and proved his sorest 
punishment. 


826 


AIR CASTLE DON 


On meeting Captain Small, Don asked him how he liked 
the Osterville parson who had exchanged with his pastor. 

“Only middling well,” Small replied, pursing his mouth 
and lifting his eyes to the clouds. “Fact is, though he may do 
for Osterville, or some place out West, like Chicago, he could 
never fill the bill for Cotuit Port. We must have the best of 
preaching in our place.” 

“How much do you pay,” Don was curious enough to ask. 

“Three hundred dollars and a donation.” 

“Where does he live?” 

“In Cotuit, of course. What makes you ask that ques- 
tion?” 

“You pay him so little, I didn’t know but he lived in 
Heaven during week days.” 

Captain Small walked away, looking grieved to the heart. 

“Look here. Captain Small,” Don called after him, and 
causing him to return; “that man is a Christian, besides being a 
good preacher. He took the cutting of his harness without 
complaint, and didn’t say a word to me about the meanness 
of his parishioners who force him to go into the pulpit looking 
as seedy as a moulting bird. I shall get him a new harness, 
and take his measure for a new suit of clothes which I will have 
made for him as soon as I return to Boston. But if you charge 
these things on your donation account Fll set the Boston 
reporters after you, and they know how to flay mean people to 
perfection.” 

“If you’ll give him them things. I’ll give him a barrel of 
flour and not let even my wife know anything about it,” said 
Small, joyously, for he loved his pastor, and practically was 
his best friend. 

And so the time passed away, almost every day bringing 
with it some new pleasure and some new incident revealing 


AIR CASTLE DON 


327 


queer phases of human nature, both juvenile and adult. 
Having the theatrical garments on board The Lady of The 
Lake, Wilhelm and Werner sifted a medley from The Midsum- 
mer Night Dream of Shakespeare, and, forming a corps of 
assistants from the club and from the bright young people of 
Cotuit and Osterville, blended them together in a nocturnal 
festival in which lanterns gleamed, songs abounded, tableaux 
figured, recitations resounded and dancing and clam chowder 
came in last, but not least in the round of innocent merry- 
making. 

The people on shore who thought it a crime to black boots 
or to wear a ribbon, were shocked, and wished that Hannah 
Screechum would do her duty by “the ungodly carousers” and 
bring them to their pious senses by one of her most piercing 
“Scritches.’" 

Although unaware of the benevolent wishes of the 
“unco guid,” people of Cotuit and Osterville, the occupants of 
Castle Indolence on the night following the festival had reason 
to believe that Hannah did not intend to let them depart with- 
out giving to the most incredulous evidences of her existence 
and of her old-time “scritching” ability. 

The lights were out, the trees were silent and not even a 
breath of wind wandered through the dense shadows of the 
island. It being half past eleven, and the campers having been 
on the sea all the afternoon blue-fishing, they were wrapped in 
a profound slumber. Suddenly there was a sharp titinabula- 
tion of a bell not far from where the camp was situated. Again 
and again the bell rang out, seeming to gather force with each 
repetition, to the unbounded horror of the trembling campers 
who hastened to light their lights. Whilst they sat cowering 
and listening to the weird sounds ringing through the woods, 
peals of high-keyed laughter pierced the air and was immedi- 


328 


AIR CASTLE DON 


ately followed by shriek after shriek that sounded so discord- 
antly terrific that the very trees began to shiver, for the wind 
itself was being aroused and sighed through the pines with a 
low undertone that but added to the general alarm. 

Peter, half clad, hugging his Bible with both hands to his 
breast, and shaking as with the palsy, fled from his own tent, 
and ran into the tent of the other campers crying out: ‘The 
Lord hae mercy on us all for a’ our iniquities an’ transgres- 
sions!” He had been sadly tried by the doings of the preced- 
ing evening, notwithstanding he had avoided remonstrances, 
and had heroically performed the duty of waiting upon the 
pleasures of the guests. He felt sure now that supernatural 
causes were at work to punish them all for having such a 
merry time. He tried to stay himself with some Scriptural 
quotation suited to the emergency, but his mind was so 
clouded by fear that his memory refused to serve him. 

Dorothy, in her terror, clung to Bert, while Gipsy cast her- 
self into Don’s arms beseeching him to keep “Hannah” from 
harming her. 

Don began to laugh in spite of Gipsy’s fears, and while Bert 
was holding Dorothy very tightly to prevent himself from 
trembling, the untimely mirth increased till it seemed but the 
echo of the sounds that came up from the surface of the 
Seapuit. 

“There is no Hannah in this hubbub,” he said, as soon as 
he could control himself. That was only an owl that made 
those shrieks and that mocking laughter is made by a loon 
that’s down there on the river, and the bell is our dinner bell. 
When the tide is up you have noticed the shoals of menhaden 
fish that swim about here. While watching them after supper 
I saw three small sharks following them and I planned to get 
one, if possible. I baited a cod-hook with a piece of fresh 


AIR CASTLE DON 


829 


beef, and after putting on a good float, threw it into the river, 
and tied the shore-end of the line to a small sapling on the top 
of which I suspended our dinner bell in such a way that it 
would ring if the bait was taken. Something is at that line; 
the line has started the bell; the bell has started the loon, and 
the loon has stirred up the owl and we have had a great scare 
for nothing. I am going down to the shore to see what has 
swallowed that bait.^’ 

“If you are sure it isn’t Hannah, I will go with you,” said 
Bert bravely, and the Vonbergs, though still shaking, as with 
an ague, declared that they would follow. 

“But what if you should be mistaken, and Hannah should 
come here while you are gone,” said Gipsy, tremulously. 

“Peter with his Bible will be a match for her,” answered 
Werner, beginning to realize the absurdity of their alarms. 

But Peter, mortified by the groundlessness of his fears and 
the dishabille of his person, had retreated to his own quarters 
where, after depositing his Bible, he said to himself: “The 
wicked flee when no man pursueth. See Proverbs twenty- 
eight and first.” 

On being called he returned looking humble and crest- 
fallen, and saying: “I might hae keened it was but an owl an’ 
a loon had I not been clean fasht by the bell. And to think it 
is the same bell I hae been ringing every day, is eneuch to 
make me believe that I hae become as daft as that loon that’s 
laughing at the bell.” 

The shark was securely hooked and required hard pulling 
to get him on shore where he threshed about in the sedge and 
snapped his jaws as if he had swallowed Hannah before taking 
the beef. He measured six feet three inches. The bell having 
ceased to ring, the loon and the owl relapsed into silence, 
leaving the shark-catchers to do the laughing and shrieking. 


330 


AIR CASTLE DON 


As soon as the sun was up they began to extract the teeth 
of the shark for mementoes, and as there was nothing more 
to fear from the manes of Hannah Screechum, Gipsy said with 
evident disappointment: ‘‘I wish it had been Hannah instead 
of the shark. There would have been seven of us to prove the 
ghost story which would have made a lovely ending to our 
wonderful trip.’^ 

‘T’d rather catch a shark than a ghost any time,” exclaimed 
Bert, with fervor. “We have got the shark, and we have had 
the scare. If an imaginary ghost can play such havoc with us, 
I wonder what a real one would have done?” 

They tried to keep the story to themselves, but Gipsy hav- 
ing told it to the captain, the captain told it to his wife, and so 
the “Barnstable Patriot” brought it out with trimmings and 
embellishments galore, as did the Boston papers also when they 
reproduced it from the Cape papers. Notwithstanding the 
facts were so widely distributed, there followed a real revival 
of The Hannah Screechum superstition and the island for 
years was given a wide birth at night. Having, however, 
received a new name, and being made accessible by a fancy 
bridge which gives entrance to driveways of surpassing beauty, 
and being frequented by the costly equipages of Boston people 
whose summer houses occupy the adjacent bluffs, the super- 
stition is fast passing into the shades of oblivion. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


A PAPTING LOOK INTO THL KALKIDOSCOPK. 

In after summers, The Lady of The Lake made other vaca- 
tion trips, but never another richer in store of pleasure and 
variety of experience than that first one which is now only a 
precious memory to those who had the good fortune to partic- 
ipate in it. 

During the vacation, Don had many an hour in which his 
old air castle habits asserted themselves with redoubled power. 
Indeed in the whole of his after life, he was seldom content 
with piling up mere wood and brick and stone according to the 
rules of the prevailing forms of architecture. He was not 
averse to hard pan, but as a general thing, he had a strong 
preference for Dreamland; and the castles he shaped there were 
far more to his mind than any he could shape on earth. True, 
they appeared only to disappear, and many of the appoint- 
ments of his imagination proved but disappointments to his 
hopes. Nevertheless, though bright clouds changed into grey, 
and sublime airy shapes became transformed into shreds of 
vapory rags or fragile tracery that only served to cob-web the 
blue sky, minature globes of moisture were distilled from them 
that made the earth the richer for their descent. 

Much to his own surprise, Don finally found himself in the 
pulpit. Doctor Beecher, his prudent and steadfast friend, 
urged him to preach a trial sermon in his desk. 

‘T, preach a trial sermon in a pulpit where first and last all 
(331) 


3B2 


AIR CASTLE DON 


the men of the Beecher family, from the father down to the 
youngest son, have preached?” Don exclaimed with astonish- 
ment. ‘‘And would you tempt me to preach a trial sermon in 
Boston where there are so many great men and grand preach- 
ers? The very thought would be the essence of temerity. 
No; ril go down home, and if I really do get courage enough 
to preach a trial sermon. I’ll try it upon the country people. 
In any event, it will be a great trial to them as well as to 
myself.” 

Although the good doctor smiled benevolently and urged 
strenuously, he failed to turn Don from either his opinion or 
his purpose. 

When he descended from the bird’s nest pulpit which hung 
near the ceiling of the meeting house where his first sermon 
was preached, it was with such shame and confusion of face 
that it seemed as though all the air castles he had ever dreamed 
of had been demolished and the remains packed in the skin 
of a mustard seed. 

While vainly endeavoring to retreat from the valley of his 
humiliation, Peter Piper, who had returned to his old haunts 
with all his old habits, met him with the words : “And ye shall 
go forth, and grow up as the calves of the stall. See Malachi 
fourth and second. Ye are but a calf o’ a preacher now, lad, 
but accoordin’ to that Scripture there’s a chance for ye to grow 
into a regular roarin’ bull o’ Bashan.” 

On reaching home his mother corrected him for saying 
first, of the first head of his sermon, instead of firstly. An 
elder brother, who had survived the ordeal of his own trial 
sermon, chided him for using the word analogy, saying that 
such a word could neither be intelligently used by the speaker 
nor understood by the people. Three younger brothers 
frankly declared that they themselves could have excelled the 


AIR CASTLE DON 


333 


sermon by a number of degrees. His only sister reproved him 
for making a sweat spout of his chin when he might have 
removed the moisture by timely applications of a handkerchief, 
which she herself had carefully placed in the right pocket of his 
coat. His father, the pastor of the flock, remained eloquently 
silent, and for this Don was profoundly thankful, for he knew 
that he might have opened his mouth and spoken terrible 
things in righteousness. 

What his old schoolmates and the people thought of his 
first effort, Don never cared nor dared to learn, but what he 
thought of himself, and it, is sealed with seven seals. Many 
years afterward Doctor Beecher tried to elicit an account of 
his emotions on the occasion of his first clerical flight — or more 
correctly speaking, his first clerical descent — but the seven 
seals remained unbroken even to him, the best advisor he ever 
had. The most vital movements of the body are concealed 
from view, and the same holds true of some of the adverse 
experiences of life which deposit the successive layers of 
human character. 

Three rather strange things happened in connection with 
Don’s clerical career. A time came when he preached inside 
of that church edifice where outside the main entrance he for- 
merly lay penniless and sick in order to shield himself from 
the drenching rain that added horrors to the forlornness of his 
night. A time came also when he occupied the desk of Tre- 
mont Temple, where he had once been compelled to make his 
midnight lodging in a dry-goods box in the attic of the build- 
ing. The sexton who discovered him in that position was still 
alive when Don stood in the desk, and was woefully perplexed 
by the quickly discovered resemblance between the looks and 
voice of the speaker and the looks and tones of the lad whom 


334 


AIR CASTLE DON 


he found dreamily murmuring in his sleep fragments of lessons 
learned in a pious home. 

In these two instances the audiences were at liberty to go 
or stay, but the third audience to be mentioned in illustration 
of the revolutions of the wheel of life, was spell bound; it could 
not turn its back on the speaker for the reason that the hearers 
were penitentiary convicts in The Charlestown State Prison. 
Among the convicts listening to Don’s sermon were four ‘long- 
time’ men, prematurely old, and with every vicious trait of 
their characters becoming more and more legibly written in 
their crime-hardened countenances with every passing year. 
Two of these men were the thieves who burglarized the Von- 
berg house, and who were convicted in consequence of Don’s 
discovery of them in Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. The other 
two were the men concerned in Don’s subsequent abduction. 
The recognition was mutual. The preacher pitied them, but 
they would have killed him without hesitation had circum- 
stances favored the execution of their vengeance. There 
comes a time in the destiny of men when, because of the invinc- 
ible force of habit it must be said: “He that is unjust, let him 
be unjust still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous 
still.” 

But to turn to less serious things. The Lady of The Lake, 
after having been in commission as a pleasure craft for several 
years, was turned over to Father Taylor, who converted her 
into a floating reading room for the benefit of the sailors. A 
September gale of wind that was no respector of vessels finally 
wrested her from her fastenings and hurled her against the 
stone dock of The Charlestown Navy Yard with such' ruthless 
force that, like The One Hoss Shay, she crumbled into nothing 
and vanished away. 


AIR CASTLE DON 


335 


Several of the original members of The Lady of The Lake 
Club are still alive. 

“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife, 

Their sober wishes never learned to stray; 

Along the cool, sequestered vale of life 

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.” 

One of them, Arnold Doane, wandered far and saw much, 
but with the great longing of a tender nature he returned to 
the scenes of his youth, where by his own ingleside he 
musingly recalls the words that were more than once recited 
or read in the cabin of The Lady of The Lake: 

“The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power, 

And all that Beauty, all that Wealth e’er gave. 
Await, alike, th’ inevitable hour; 

The paths of Glory lead but to the grave.” 

“Time has taught me many wholesome lessons and has 
weeded from my heart many noxious things,” said The Rev. 
John Paul Lovejoy with deep sincerity to Don, whom he had 
met at a great religious convention. “It has taught me that I 
did a great wrong when I turned you from my door so impa- 
tiently, and has weeded from my heart that selfish pride which 
made me more ambitious of preaching great sermons than of 
helping the poor and the needy.” 

Don looked at the veteran with brimming eyes and 
responding heartily and forgivingly, said: “Now that I am in 
the ministry myself, I realize what temptations focalize them- 
selves upon the pulpit. And there, if anywhere, one should 
sincerely pray: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us 
from evil. Your present disposition makes ample amends for 
any mistakes you may have formerly committed.” 

“If they could be amended as easily as you forgive them I 


336 


AIR CASTLE DON 


should experience less pain whenever I see you or hear your 
name mentioned,” he sadly replied. “Every mistake is a nail 
driven; we may withdraw the nail, but we cannot efface the 
mark it leaves.” 

A very handsome and elegantly dressed young woman 
standing near seemed to be waiting for the conversation to end, 
seeing which both men paused. 

“I must apologize for interrupting you,” she said, address- 
ing Don, “yet I cannot refrain from speaking to you, for I am 
the eldest daughter of that family you saved from freezing and 
starving to death during the great snow storm. Thanks for 
your timely aid and subsequent fidelity we have prospered ever 
since. This is my husband, who is with me, and he wishes me 
to introduce him to you.” 

McElwin, the husband, a delegate to the convention, and a 
fine looking fellow, joined his wife in her acknowledgements, 
and begged him to make their house his home while he was in 
Providence. 

Doctor Lovejoy could not but hear the conversation; and 
that which was the occasion of supreme satisfaction to Don, 
was a painful reminder to himself. Don was finding the bread 
he had cast upon the waters in his youth, while the Doctor, 
having sown so sparingly, was reaping nothing but the thistles 
of regret. 

The three days Don spent with the McElwins in no wise 
diminished the satisfaction he experienced when they first 
acknowledged their indebtedness to him, although he took 
good care to let them know that but for the noble people who 
stood back of him he could not have rendered the substantial 
aid he did. 

“But,” said Mrs. McElwin, “if you had not braved that 
storm, I should not be here to-day, for when you entered our 


AIR CASTLE DON 


337 


room, the deadly numbness which precedes freezing was 
already stealing through my veins. And notwithstanding my 
efforts to keep my sisters covered, they also complained of the 
symptoms that were seizing me.” 

Her father was doing well, and with his family also lived in 
Providence. Don visited them with the daughter and received 
a welcome that was as warm as the fire that he started with the 
bundle of tracts on the day of his first visit. 

have often laughed at the zeal with which you distributed 
your tracts in that stove,” he said, alluding to the incident, 
‘‘but am always sobered by the thought that, after all, they 
wrought the salvation that my family and I stood most in need 
of at that moment. We were saved as by fire literally; two 
hours more and we should have frozen to death.” 

“Yes, I have already told him that,” said his daughter. 

“Well, it can’t be told too often,” remarked Amelie, the 
second daughter. “The saving of seven lives in one day ought 
to have secured for Mr. Donalds a medal of gold.” 

“I have already received more than gold can measure,” 
Don responded. “Success in helping our fellow beings is its 
own best reward.” And as he spoke he recalled Bert’s objec- 
tions to his going forth on that eventful morning, and his con- 
fessions when informed of what had been done. 

And now it is time to say that Bert married Dorothy Von- 
berg and finally removed to Chicago, the Chicago which he 
had always thought of with fear and trembling, and spoken of 
with the most depreciating words he could cull from his vocab- 
ulary. He has a book establishment of his own in the city and 
firmly believes that sooner or later Chicago will become the 
literary center of the United States. He is as extravagant in 
his praise of The Western Metropolis as he formerly was in 
its disparagement. And whether the temperature be hot or 


338 


AIR CASTLE DON 


cold, and the air currents calm or cyclonic, he maintains 
against all comers that there is no place like Chicago. He 
even goes so far as to say that her stock-yards and elevators, 
and her cliff buildings, parks and boulevards are the wonders 
of the world, while the hearts of her citizens are as big as her 
Ferris Wheel, and as nimble as the highest grade bicycle. 
Dorothy shares his enthusiasm, and when her father, the 
major, accompanied by Colonel Wickworth and his wife, vis- 
ited her on Sylvan avenue, they, highly seasoned Bostonians 
though they were, quite readily conceded that Chicago was by 
no means the worst city in the world. 

“Colonel Wickworth and his wife!” exclaims the reader. 
“How did that superannuated old bachelor happen to get 
married?” 

By taking Bert’s mother to Don with a license made out in 
due form, and having The Reverend Don Donalds unite them 
according to rites and ceremonies made and provided for such 
emergencies. He began his journey towards matrimony by 
visiting Don in the first place, and continued it by visiting the 
widow, in the second place; and completed it by taking her 
and going to Don, as aforesaid. Old as they were, Don per- 
formed the ceremony with great satisfaction, for he knew that 
two hearts which had showered unstinted kindness upon him 
would not be lacking in kindness toward each other. 
Besides, he had performed the ceremony for Professor Kras- 
inski and his bride, the daughter of his friend. Deacon Snow: 
and why, therefore, should he not rejoice to do the same for the 
colonel and the widow? 

Gipsy’s satisfaction arising from the union was palatably 
seasoned by the reflection, that, now that her mother and the 
colonel were one, neither Miss Agincourt nor Deacon Wick- 
worth, in the event of the colonel’s departure for another 


AIR CASTLE DON 


839 


world, before they were ready to go, could by even the most 
sanguine stretch of expectation hope to derive benefit from his 
demise. In her judgment it was poetically just that Don, who 
had suffered so much through their instrumentality, should 
perform the ceremony which turned their hopes into despair. 
Bert sympathized with her views and so did Dorothy and the 
major and his two sons, Wilhelm and.W^erner. Jf, in some 
instances variety is the spice of life, in others unanimity is the 
wine, for even Don himself chuckled when he thought of Ara- 
bella’s and the deacon’s chagrin and disappointment. 

But the reader is waiting for the announcement of the 
union of Don and Gipsy in the bonds of matrimony. That 
announcement cannot be made because it did not take place. 

What! Not married? Did they not love each other? 
Yes, certainly. Did they not kiss each other? Yes, but only 
on two occasions. Did not Gipsy throw herself into Don’s 
arms when Hannah Screechum Was supposed to be in camp? 
Yes; but she got out of them as soon as it was known that the 
bell-ringing and weird laughter and ghostly shrieks were all 
owing to the struggles of an unromantic shark whose love of 
raw beef had gotten him into a peck of trouble. 

But they did not marry each other for three good reasons. 
Their love began too early, and consequently they outgrew it 
as boys and girls outgrow their knickerbockers and their short 
dresses. The everlasting loves of callow youth are apt to 
prove the neverlasting crudities of mere sentimental impulse — 
the morning cloud and early dew which vanish away under the 
rays of the rising sun of the maturer life. 

The second reason was that Gipsy became a teacher in a 
female seminary; and teachers in female seminaries get to be 
so good and learned that they dry up and are blown away. At 


340 


AIR CASTLE DON 


any rate, after Gipsy went into the seminary, Don lost sight 
her altogether. 

And in the last place, as the preacher says, and generally to 
the great relief of his listeners, Don married another — a daugh- 
ter of the man whose family he had been the means of saving 
from starvation and death — the sister of Mrs. McElwins, whose 
beauty, modesty, amiability all blending with an indescribable 
piquancy of character captured him in enduring bonds while 
he was at her father’s house in Providence. 

But here we must end, for their love for each other is 
another story. 


THE END. 






V 


MN THE 

Young America Series 


TAN PILE JIM 

OR 

ft Yankee Wait ftmono the Biuenoses 

By B. FREEMAN ASHEEY 

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young and old. 

•‘A classic in the literature of youth. A 
clean, healthy book ,” — Boston Times. 


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IN THE 

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DICK AND JACK’S 
. Ad'^' ntures on Sable Island 

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author, 

EDMONDO DK AMICIS 


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LAIRD & LEE, Chicago 








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